Sponsorship 101: The Ins and Outs for Donors, Providers and Recipients

Sponsorship: An Often Overlooked Opportunity

There's a tremendous opportunity for donors as well as social entrepreneurs to achieve positive impact and joy through program sponsorship. I get a lot of questions about this model because this is how we resource the Joyful Impact Accelerator we run for social entrepreneurs and a similar program we run for philanthropy advisors.  

This post walks through the sponsorship model as a resource engine to provide teaching, coaching and other programs which focus on participants' learning and development. 

What are we talking about here? In its simplest form, a sponsorship approach breaks up the bilateral relationship between a donor and a grantee.  The sponsor provides resources to the provider and the provider in turn provides programming and/or other supports to program participant. 

Sponsored growth and learning programs: opportunity for a win-win-win

• For the recipient: services and support centered on your particular needs, ideally at a level and quality you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access
• For the donor: opportunity to know for certain that your resources are making a transformative difference for specific people who are leaders and/or members of the communities you are seeking to serve
• For the program provider: opportunity to share your gifts and make your contribution with the people and populations you are most called to serve, regardless of their level of resources

Program sponsorship creates opportunity to set aside socially constructed roles and come together in creative ways across the 4 functional roles in the work of social change

Cohort-Based Personal and Professional Development Programs Help Participants Address All 5 Foundations for Effective Strategic Action

One of the most leveraged ways for donors to feel outsize impact is to get behind the growth and learning of early and mid-stage social entrepreneurs. Support their impact and their personal growth and joy. Think of this as “guardian angel” investing. Social entrepreneurs often feel their calling so strongly that they lead from a personally sacrificial place. Those patterns of sacrificial leadership often lead to burnout and blunt their long-term impact. So, for donors, make a rule that when you get behind a social entrepreneur’s venture, you also get behind their personal wellness and flourishing. You won’t find many other donors focusing so directly on the personal and professional growth of these leaders and their teams. Your involvement here means you will know that your giving is playing a unique role in this venture’s continued success and social impact because you are helping that leader take action across all 5 key foundations for effective, strategic action--whereas most traditional grant-making touches only one or two of these levers. 

Getting Comfortable with Relational and Instrumental Motivations

A lot of times it can feel uncomfortable to name the fact that relationships can be a key factor in sponsorship opportunities.  This can be a source of inequity, to the extent that relationships between sponsors, program providers and recipients are not evenly distributed.  But there's an opportunity to turn this dynamic on its head. If we are willing on all sides to proceed prior to trust, program sponsorship can be an incredible accelerant to building trust and relationships among all parties.  Sponsorship can be a key opportunity to BUILD relationships, not just to draw on those that already exist.  In the process it's important for all parties to be real with each other, and to name the interests that they are hoping to advance through the sponsorship process.

Relational Motivation:

• Is sponsor’s motivation about the provider and their connection, relationship, or influence with the sponsor?
• Is sponsor’s motivation about the recipient and their connection, relationship or influence with the sponsor?

Instrumental Motivation

• Is sponsor’s motivation about themselves their own interest-based calculus?
• If so, where on the sponsor's impact chain does the offering come in?  Are sponsored program’s outputs an input for them?  Or does everyone share the same ultimate outputs?

Barriers to Overcome

• Lack of trusting relationships and proximity between donors, program providers and program participants
• Concerns about assessing impact authentically in a way that doesn't distort integrity of participant experience and provider's vision
• Lack of knowledge and comfort with mechanics of sponsorship funding arrangements, especially between for-profit businesses and donors [e.g.placing sponsorship funds into a segregated bank accounts that is used only for charitable purposes]

Practical Steps Forward

• For program participants: be real about the need for sponsored services with existing supporters, and be willing to share at least some portion of your experience with sponsors in a non-performative way
• For sponsors: adopt the policy that if you are backing an organization or an entrepreneur in a significant way, you always back personal growth and support for them and their teams as well.
• For program providers: develop blended models of sponsorship and fee for service. Collaborate to achieve economies of scale and amplifications of depth of service. Shift away from the “oasis model” to create ongoing alumni communities that help people stay plugged in and sustained for the long haul