By Jacques Adam

For our next newsletter we are looking for real stories from your part of the world. Sharing ideas, tips and strategies on how to improve our collective sponsorship program will benefit everyone. The following is an article from the IEG Sponsorship Report (Feb 7, 2005, copyrighted material of IEG Sponsorship Report, Chicago, Ill. USA). How would you deal with this issue?

The article discusses how the state of Illinois is attempting to secure official sponsors. The Department of Transportation is seeking companies to sponsor the highway maps that are handed out at rest stops and other state facilities. It is asking $350,000 for the sponsorship, the cost of printing three million maps.

The state is making two mistakes common to organizations that are sponsorship neophytes.

First, instead of offering the most valuable inventory to their sponsors, it is simply trying to market something for which it requires funding.

Second, it is basing the price of the sponsorship on the cost to produce the maps, not on the value to the sponsors. The state has failed to discern a difference between sponsorship and underwriting.

If you have a comment about this article, or a suggested reading that would help us become more efficient in our sponsorship activities, please forward it to be included in our next Sponsorship Newsletter (deadline Oct. 15, 2005).