In the current scenario, there are many NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and nonprofit organizations which are doing great activities for e.g.- tree plantation, free education to poor children, personality development workshops etc. In some cases, the Government provides some amount of funds as grants and remaining funds are given by the social worker themselves crowdfunding. But NGO can’t rely on crowdfunding more because it is variable. The other options to get funding is a peer to peer fundraising, online fundraising, individual donations, corporate funding etc.
Corporate funding
It is done to the NGOs or nonprofit organization and in return for a corporation’s branding. The types of corporate funding are large financial gifts and matching campaign, campaign and cause marketing and in-kind sponsorships.
1.Large gifts and matching campaign – this type a large financial gift is done as sponsorship which helps corporation in tax benefits. This is done for a certain period of time as fundraising which doubles the impact of corporation’s offering.
2. Campaign and cause marketing. This is a type of business strategy which many of the corporates uses. In this financial funding in exchange of brand recognition of the company. This type of sponsorship is done when the company has some goals about the marketing or business development like increase in brand exposure, selling of the additional or new product, improving their brand image etc. This type of funding is often taxable as recognition of their branding is expressed as a form of advertisement.
3. In-kind sponsorships. In some cases, the corporation decides to provide the service or manpower or expertise instead of funding. For e.g. suppose there is a logistic company and one organization wants a logistic or transport then there are chances that logistic company will provide them with transport as a sponsorship. In-kind sponsorships are mostly provided by local corporations or companies.
Benefits to corporates
Benefits of corporate sponsorships are:
1.Tax credit.
2. Reduce and eliminate estate taxes.
3.Building assets.
4.Brand recognition.
Questions to prepare
It is very important to know the answers to the following questions which can be asked by corporates and on that basis, they will decide about the deal.
• How do our programs differ from those at other nonprofits?
• Is our operational approach different in some way?
• What would happen if our organization didn’t exist?
• What goals & objectives would this sponsorship support?
• How would they measure the success of sponsorship?
• What can our organization provide that would create a return on this investment for them?
Outreach
In every corporate, there is a particular way of pitching and getting the appointment which is a professional way to meet the responsible person.
The steps are as follows.
1. Initial email or call – we have to know who the responsible person in the corporation. We have to write a
email or a call to him for an appointment.
2. Pitch decks – matter of the email or call should be crisp, precise and small so that it will not take more time to explain who we are? What do we do? What is our agenda?
3. In-person or virtual meeting/ presentation – after we get an appointment it is better to have a presentation over a virtual platform
or by visiting the office.
4. Submission of specific proposal catered to potential partner’s needs/ objectives – here we have to submit a report in which it must cover important points like what will be the benefits of the funding? The objective of the project, why we choose you?
Negotiation is done by a corporation etc.
5. Follow-up – follow-up is a very important step. Here we have to keep in touch with the officials and ask for their decisions and further process.
