Government can be sponsors, sponsorship seekers, event funders, event owners, or all of the above. Whether it is creating a best practice approach within the confines of government policies and agendas, or skilling up the community events and programs you fund, Kim Skildum-Reid understands the challenges and can create a training program that will meet your needs.

You could...

• Upgrade the skills of your sponsorship staff - teaching them to use the techniques of best-practice sponsors, while staying true to the mission as a public body
• Upgrade the skills of your sponsorship seeking staff - teaching them to secure sponsorship from corporations and companies in your communities without compromising the "ownership" or autonomy of your programs
• Increase the skills of the events and programs you fund, so that they are better able to secure additional sponsorship funding from corporate sponsors and the community, and better able to market themselves to people within the community

There is a lot to cover on government sponsorship training, so we have broken it into a few sections: 

• Structuring a program to meet your needs
• What we cover
• Client comments
• Look good? How to get more information

Structuring a program to meet your needs

Whether you need to modernize the skills of your sponsorship staff, enlighten a broad array of internal stakeholders, improve the skills of your partners, or work through specific strategic challenges, there is a format that will work for you.

Depending upon your needs, we can combine any or all of the following options:

Intensive skill-building

These one- or two-day sessions cover not only the principles of modern sponsorship, but the practical skills, tools, and processes so that you can benefit from this forward thinking, yet sensible approach throughout your company or organisation. Also included are many case studies from around the world.

Intensive skill-building sessions are most appropriate for frontline sponsorship and marketing staff and can be tailored for staff across a number of sponsorship functions, including:

• Seeking sponsorship for government programs and events
• Investing government sponsorship money in other programs and events (ie, being a sponsor)
• Funding (grants or sponsorship) community organisations who may not be great at marketing themselves and/or securing other sponsorship

Strategy facilitation

If you have specific challenges to address, we can develop a highly customised program that will help your team develop a winning strategy. Before developing your session, we take the time to understand your brand and the challenges at hand, as well as doing in-depth research on ideas and precedent from around the world.

Virtually any sponsorship challenge can benefit from a facilitated team session, including areas such as leverage program development, negotiation planning, offer development, and developing marketing plans for events or programs.

Strategy input

If you need more in-depth strategy input than is possible during a facilitation session, we can arrange a half- or full-day working session with Kim Skildum-Reid.

Whether your goal is to overhaul or simply fine-tune your approach, she will arrive fully briefed and prepared to provide input and insight into how you can address your challenges and get the most from your sponsorship strategy.

What we cover

Depending on whether you need in-depth skill-building or a more general session for a broad group of stakeholders, we can tailor a training program to meet your needs. Of course, we will take into account your organisation’s level of expertise when developing your training session and can develop courses for every level from beginners to advanced.

All sessions include a wide range of case studies and examples from around the world. Some of the topics we cover are outlined below. Your workshop(s) can cover any or all of these, or any other topics that are pertinent to your business.

Modern sponsorship basics		Sponsorship leverage
The unique power of sponsorship Growth and trends The difference between bad, good, and great sponsorship		The sponsors' responsibility, the sponsorship seeker's responsibility Taking the catalyst approach  Creativity, resourcefulness, and throwing out the rulebook (AKA, getting to the big ideas) Gaining internal support  Funding leverage appropriately
Sponsorship's changing role		Sponsorship measurement
The new drivers of great sponsorship - and it's not brand needs The new model of sponsorship Its place in your marketing mix Changing your organisational approach		Measurement options that work Measurement options that don't work Benchmarking Using your internal resources Best-practice sponsorship research
Preparing yourself for success		Renewals
Policy and strategy development The best resources, systems, and tools Increasing your organisational skill base		Assessing partner performance Creating a renegotiation plan Timing Contingencies Negotiating in a bidding war
Choosing the right sponsorships (for sponsors)		Portfolio management (for sponsors)
Developing evaluation criteria Becoming pro-active - the art of invitation How to stop wasting your time with bad proposals Budgets and contingencies Alternative funding Creating your own events		Auditing your portfolio two ways Structuring the ideal sponsorship portfolio Alternative structures - umbrella, customer-decides, and creating your own event Downsizing your portfolio Exit strategies that will not make you look (or feel) like the bad guy
Selling more sponsorship (for sponsorship seekers)		Creating your own events (for sponsors)
Knowing what you have to offer and what has value Targeting only the most appropriate sponsors Creating a compelling offer The importance of creativity, customisation, and giving them the big ideas Pricing strategies and issues		Positives and negatives of creating and/or owning your own events Buying and event v. creating an event Management strategies Seeking other sponsors for your events (and the responsibilities associated with that)
Negotiation and contracts		Marketing plan development (for sponsorship seekers)
The new wave in negotiation Cash, contra, and promotional support Structuring payments Other negotiation issues Agreement options Negotiating with a broker		Developing the "brand" foryour event or program Target market segmentation Analysing your opportunities and issues Creating cost-effective marketing plans Media planning and negotiation Using sponsors as part of your marketing plan
Sponsorship management		Getting cause sponsorship right (for sponsors)
Setting the stage for a good relationship Sponsorship planning Communication - What kind and how much is appropriate Reporting Issues and crisis management		Good corporate citizenship - getting past the euphemisms Achieving marketing and other objectives through cause sponsorship Issues and opportunities specific to causes The difference between cause sponsorship and CSR
Sponsorship servicing (for sponsorship seekers)		Using sponsorship to achieve workforce objectives
Your post-sale responsibilities and what a sponsors expect Adding value to the sponsorship Budgeting to add value What constitutes a value-add and what is just cosmetic		Creating and supporting the corporate culture Involvement, buy-in, and incentives - the strengths and weaknesses of each approach Sponsorship as a recruitment tool Sponsorship and workforce retention

Client comments

"Incredible results from some of our key organisers who attended the two-day, DIY Sponsorship Workshop.  They are more creative, easier to work with and more readily able to identify sponsors needs."

                                 Karen Watkins 
                                 Events Executive, Communication and Marketing 
                                 HamiltonCity Council 
                                 www.hamilton.co.nz

"If you're a practical marketer with real targets, then you and your team need Kim's sponsorship framework and tools.  Simple, sensible, effective... you'll be able to apply Kim's approach from day one.  We did."

                                 Tom Grealy
                                 National Manager, Customer Acquisition
                                 Telstra Country Wide 
                                 www.telstra.com 
 

“Sponsorship is the most prolifically used yet least understood elements of the marketing mix. So often, we are guilty of buying into sponsorship but not making the extra 10% effort to leverage it into a truly effective asset. Having used Kim as both a sponsorship trainer and coach I/we gained the knowledge to make it effective for us, to allow sponsorship to become a significant catalyst for the rest of our marketing activity and, above all, it taught us how to find the time, resources and skills to get an effective return on our sponsorship investment. The answer to this lies within your organisation – This style of training will help you find out how to harness it”

                                 Donald McBain
                                 Head of Integrated Marketing
                                 General Motors UK 
                                 www.vauxhall.co.uk
 

"The training we received from Kim Skildum-Reid was invaluable in gaining buy-in to use sponsorship as a strategic marketing tool.  As a department, it quickly brought us up to speed on the power of sponsorship and was instrumental in our move to integrate sponsorship across all marketing activities."

                                 Sarah Beard
                                 Sponsorship and Public Relations Manager
                                 Telecom Directories 
                                 www.yellowpages.co.nz
 

"Kim Skildum-Reid's sponsorship training has transformed Habitat for Humanity Australia's approach to engaging corporations. Where we once used to ask for them for support, we now ask how we can help them achieve their marketing objectives. As a result we have developed deep, long lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships which deliver outstanding outcomes for both partners."

                                 Michael Pailthorpe
                                 CEO
                                 Habitat for Humanity Australia 
                                 www.habitat.org.au
 

"Kim did an excellent job educating and training our Account Management staff on the new rules of sponsorship.  Sponsorships have changed significantly within the past few years and Kim is at the leading edge of that change - she has shown us how to better leverage the sponsorship investment for maximum effect."

                                 Jim Moser
                                 Managing Director
                                 Clemenger BBDO Sydney 
                                 www.clemenger.com.au

"When Woolworths, Australia's leading food retailer, centralised sponsorship after working for years on a state-by-state basis, Kim Skildum-Reid was called in to give us direction and train Woolworths staff on how we should now look at business sponsorship opportunities. The training was invaluable and is still used today - almost 4 years down the track - and her books are referred to frequently."

                                 Julie Rush
                                 Sponsorship and Events Manager – Marketing
                                 Woolworths 
                                 www.woolworths.com.au

Look good? How to get more information