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I’m so happy to have been invited to return to the National Arts Marketing Project Conference and host another Sponsorship Boot Camp Preconference. I’ve been involved since the conference’s first year in 2001, and I’m flattered to have been invited back ever since to run the boot camp. I must be doing something right. Having watched how these NAMP Conferences have grown since the beginning,  I have to admit that they have gotten better and better (ie, content), not just bigger and bigger.

As you can imagine, securing corporate money is getting more difficult in today’s economy so the boot camp has become a staple at the conference.  I promise each and every one of you that you will walk out of the room with specific tools – that work – starting  the first day you get back to your desk.

Let me tell you a little bit about my background. I spent 20 years giving away money around the world for The Chase Manhattan Bank, that is, “heritage” Chase, the original one before it merged with any other banks. I spent eight years in the Philanthropy group and then moved over to Marketing for what I thought would be six months. The six months turned into 12 more years, and I landed up creating the first sponsorship program in a commercial bank.

I don’t have a business degree – rather two degrees in art history. And I worked in the museum world before Chase. But I am logical and intuitive. As long as Chase used the marketing dollars to do good for the arts AND do business for itself at the same time, it worked.  But the program did more than work, it generated $2 Billion in new business!

I left Chase in 1999 and became a sponsorship consultant, launching Arts + Business Partners LLC to work with arts groups and businesses on how to work smarter, together. For the arts, we are not fundraisers but fundraising therapists. And for the business sector, we are strategic matchmakers. Whether with Chase or now as a sponsorship consultant and lecturer, my philosophy has remained the same:  you will always get a fair hearing if the approach to a potential sponsor makes logical business sense.

Now back to the boot camp. We’ll focus on the internal and the external phases to getting a corporate sponsor. On the internal side, you can’t ask for money until you do your own internal due diligence.  How do you write? Is your case for support succinct and sexy? Remember, writing to a corporation and writing to a foundation are 180 degrees apart….

What are you selling? Can you create a menu of sponsorship opportunities so sponsors can own separate activities?  What are you offering in terms of benefits? I hope you can create what money can’t buy! And don’t forget in-kind.  There are many things to ask for that help with your bottom line but don’t cost the sponsor a literal dime.

On the external side, I am sure you know that cold calling doesn’t work in the arts. So how do you meet the funders on a personal level? And if you are lucky enough to get a meeting, how can you make the most of the 30 or 40 minute meeting you might have together? Do you talk? Do they? What should you ask?

We’ll talk about all of this and more. And you will come away able to think more strategically, write more effectively and improve your approach. I want all the participants to be more effective fundraisers and/or marketers!

Of course, I want you to share your biggest frustrations and greatest success stories. But is there something else you’d like me to cover in the preconference? Are there other issues really bugging you? Comment below!

I look forward to seeing you at Sponsorship Boot Camp in Providence on October 30 or the sponsorship Friday night dine around.

For more information on the National Arts Marketing Project Conference–or to register–please visit http://artsmarketing.org/conference

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