Cultivating Sponsors

Cultivating Sponsors

I’ve mentioned Fairs, Events, and Festivals first because these are the first points of public contact that most of us have. However they aren’t the only ones. In this day and age it is hard to find a sponsor to give the $25,000 to 30,000 it might take to create a trust fund for a horse. However, if you break it down into smaller amounts and present it to groups it makes it possible indeed.

For each Sanctuary horse on your property you know that you need to have a certain amount of money set aside to protect its security. I'm going to now give you a secret to PR that many don’t know.

A Secret to success:
Make yourself available to every single church group, community club, service organization, school and  business association , 4 h club, girl scouts, boy scouts out there to Visit them and give a talk or program to their  organization. Tell them the story of a horse and tell them how their group can become a sponsor of that horse through raising money among their members. Some groups wont be able to fund the entire horse but they will be able to fund a portion. Most of the service organizations will give you some sort of speaker’s fee or donation for your organization.

Some groups will want to have a field trip  to your  place. Do the tour for a donation and charge for box picnic lunches or provide a picnic. Have someone donate the food. Let your volunteers help host it and serve or cook the food. This is also a good time for Volunteers to have a learning experience in giving a tour and answering questions and telling stories. Every time you meet or come in contact with a new group them tell them a positive story about a horse and let them meet that horse. Tell them how they can sponsor.


By giving your talks, and presenting a positive opportunity,don't be surprised if someone in the groups suggests another group you might want to speak to.

Expand your funding base:
When you finish with one Community then move on to the next one until everyone in a 50 mile radius gets to know you. For some of us in the East that is going to mean literally millions of potential one time donors. If you are in a  rural or low population area extend your public outreach to 100 miles or so.

Remember this: the closer to the inner city you get the less money available and  the farther away from the city you get the less money available. Don’t discount going to either of theses because you don’t know that in visiting their organization or club that you haven’t inspired them to donate and become volunteers and maybe something greater. Just be sure that you balance out your travel budget so that those farther away ones are funded with out taking money from the general fund.


Here is are suggestion as to how people who want to be sponsors can be involved. Almost every company has a public service project to nurture good will for their company and their employees. One of the things you can do is to visit the company association and see if they would be interested in sponsoring  a mustang.

Just a word of warning. You have to have a professional face before you go there. And you need to have a contact person who knows your organization,  how its set up and has visited your location and even has met the horses there.  A positive person on the inside can help give your organization validation.

Donations from Sponsoring business associations can sometimes be as small as several thousand dollars and  large enough to fund your organization for an entire year.  Don’t be ungrateful for either extreme or somewhere in the middle.  If they want to sponsor  a band of horses.. meaning a stallion, several mares and younger horses ( anywhere from 5 to 20)  have that information ready for them. Some executives might want to sponsor individual horses. Have that information ready too.

Any time any one, no matter who they are, asks you how much to sponsor a single horse, tell them truthfully.  Because you don’t know who  might already have the money to do it.For the rest of the people give them options.
 
Suggestions for Individuals that might want to Sponsor:
Sponsor a horse for  1 month
Sponsor a horse of   6 months
Sponsor a horse for 9 months
Sponsor a horse for a year
Sponsor a horse from the wild to the Sanctuary
Sponsor a horse for one year plus their trust fund.

Small groups, and Children’s clubs might want to sponsor  in these ways:
Sponsor the horse from the wild to the sanctuary:
Sponsor the horse for a year
Sponsor the horse for medical bills
One time donation to the maintenance trust for the horse

Larger organizations may want to sponsor in this way:
 Sponsor a group of horses from the Wild to the Sanctuary
Fund the Medical fund for a group of horses
Fund the horse for life
Fund the establishment of a Band

 You will have to run the numbers specific to your organization to see what sort of figures you would need to share with potential donors, however, this is all information you should be able to give when asked.  I emphasize when asked. You don’t want to overwhelm them with facts and figures  let them ask and then,help them find a comfortable figure.

Don't forget to write down their contact information. Every person you speak with who asks you for information should be kept for future reference.

As you can probably tell fund raising and finding new support are full time jobs for a non profit. 
A Management strategy for a non profit that doesn’t include one person doing nothing but this important out reach full time, will have a hard time keeping  the cash flow going.