March 21, 2011 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Chicago
In working with corporate supporters, nonprofit groups should seek both outright grants and sponsorships, recognizing that the recession has changed what companies want out of their relationships with charities, said Peter H. Hansen, vice president of development at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
In the recession, he said, many companies pulled back on their philanthropic commitments but held onto sponsorships of charity events and other activities that helped them fulfill business goals with customers and employees.
Mr. Hansen, who spoke at the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ annual meeting here, cited data compiled by IEG, a Chicago company that tracks all types of corporate sponsorship: In both 2008 and 2009, at the height of the recession, companies spent more than $16-billion annually to sponsor charity events and other causes. That was about $2-million more than what they spent on outright grants in those years, according to Giving USA, the annual tally of American philanthropy.
These days, companies are looking for sponsorship benefits that go way beyond simply putting their name on a banner or other signage at events, said Mr. Hansen. Now they also want creative, cost-effective ways to form “authentic” relationships with customers, build professional networks with other corporations, and reward their employees.
He provided several examples from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, in Newark, which raises up to $3.6-million annually—more than 10 percent of its budget—from corporate sponsors.
For instance, one sponsor, Bank of America, which supports a classical-music series at the center, also purchased tickets to performances and coupled them with gift certificates redeemable at nearby restaurants. The company then gave them out as gifts to midlevel Bank of America executives to “reward their performance through challenging times,” said Mr. Hansen.
For its 10th anniversary in 2007, the arts center offered Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, a corporate donor, the opportunity also to become a sponsor. As a sponsor, the company was invited to park its mobile health “caravan” on the center’s grounds so it could offer health screenings and other services to people who attended free circus performances.
In addition, the arts center also decided to give the insurance company more than it had asked for, to “deliver beyond the proposal,” said Mr. Hansen. To that end, it named Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield as one of the “presenting sponsors” of a summer concert series at no charge to the company. The company was so pleased with both sponsorship events that it made an additional $1-million outright gift to the arts center.
Mr. Hansen described a third sponsorship arrangement that the performing-arts center has formed with Continental Airlines, which donates free air-travel miles to the center in addition to cash. During membership drives, the center has offered 10,000 free miles to any member who renews his or her commitment for another year.
The arts center found another way to appeal to Continental, Mr. Hansen said: helping the company organize a OnePass Online Auction for its best customers. During the auction, Continental frequent fliers were invited to use their OnePass miles to bid on one-of-a-kind experiences, such as dinner, tickets to a performance at the arts center, and a personal meeting with the artist featured in the show.
“If you have a good philanthropic relationship, see if you can leverage it into sponsorship,” Mr. Hansen said. Doing so, he said, will bring greater financial rewards and satisfaction from corporate donors.
