12 of the Best Event Sponsorship Proposal Examples to Inspire Yours

According to EventMB, finding sponsors is the second biggest logistical challenge when it comes to organising events.

Providing useful information as a magnet for potential sponsors is one approach through which many conferences have found success. However, deciding what kind of information to include in a sponsorship proposal, and how to design it so that it’s clear and appealing to your potential partners is a challenge onto itself.

As such, we’ve scoured hundreds of conference websites to show you some best-in-class sponsorship prospectuses to help inspire your set up and hopefully help you boost the number of sponsorship requests you get.

Here’s a quick index of the conferences whose sponsorship proposals we’ll be chatting about:

1) RailsConf

RailsConf prides itself on being the place for product launches, project announcements, and good old-fashioned networking.

Image source: https://railsconf.com/

Note that the contact details for the person responsible for receiving these requests appears at the bottom of each page of the prospectus. In this instance we’ve redacted the details for privacy, but if you’re interested in getting in contact with the team with a sponsorship enquiry, these details are of course available via the full proposal document. In some of the following examples, we’ve also cropped them out to keep things concise.

Image Source: https://railsconf.com/

As you can see above, the increased readability that comes with putting your sponsorship tiers in a table means potential supporters of your conference or event can get all the information about the benefits you’re offering at a glance, something this example does splendidly.

Image Source: https://railsconf.com/

As well as the standard packages on offer, the team behind RailsConf offers A La Carte options for sponsors where they can contribute towards certain side-events or items central to the event. This is a great idea to get sponsors who may be most interested in getting involved in a more hands-on way than traditional options would offer.

Image Source: https://railsconf.com/

Arguably the most important part of attracting sponsors is giving them a way to get in touch with you, and by including a form at the end of the prospectus, RailsConf makes it easy for them to do just that.

2) J on the Beach

J on the Beach is an international rendezvous for developers and DevOps folks working with Big Data technologies.

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

Providing a conference overview is essential to communicating what your brand represents and J on the Beach share this beautifully:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

Conference organising teams should always keep in mind that sponsors mostly want to know who they’ll be sharing their story with, much as those organisers do. That’s always the attendees.

Any way that the team behind the event can share more information to help potential sponsors understand who will be joining the event will be a powerful asset to any pitch. Below, you can see an innovative approach that J on the Beach took where they shared the topics their previous audiences were most interested in:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

They go one step further by including those attendees’ job roles as well:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

And some of the companies they represent:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

All of these assets combine to give potential sponsors a vivid image of what the crowd at J on the Beach will be like. Then they can see if these people fit into the profile of the customers they traditionally work with.

However, even if these people fall into the personas and demographics that the sponsor companies are used to, they might not be returning attendees. Not, that is, if they had previously been dissatisfied with the content or production of the conference.

To circumvent that, J on the Beach have also shared the results of a survey they shared with participants from their past events, something organisers could consider leveraging to bolster their own events’ appeal:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

Again, in a bid to take things one step further, they shared verbatim feedback from Twitter and media outlets to show how people reacted to what they’ve produced:

Image Source: https://jonthebeach.com/

And, lastly, they share their contact details simply in the last slide, prompting their readers to act on the hooks they’ve presented. Simple, effective, and a great example of a summary document done well.

3) Tech Budapest Conference Series

The Tech Budapest Conference Series is a little different to the rest of the conferences in this line-up. As the name would suggest, it’s not a single event, and rather a collection of them.

Included in that are Craft Conf, Amuse, Stretch, and Crunch. As well as that, they’re all included in the same sponsorship pitch deck.

This conference series’ proposal opens with a list of previous sponsors who have been involved:

Image Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qL2ZQR-7lHgJB3ivlukzRm7H6sGwMJ7/view%C2%A0

Again, this helps potential sponsors to see if there are any similar companies to theirs opting into partnering with this event. Such a presence presents a lucrative opportunity for that company to get involved with an audience proven to be relevant to their interests.

In a similar sense, they also share information about their past attendees, but their layout shares an abundance of detail all in one slide:

Image Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qL2ZQR-7lHgJB3ivlukzRm7H6sGwMJ7/view%C2%A0

To aid sponsors in visualising how they can get involved, the team behind the conferences in the Tech Budapest Series have also shared some images of how previous partners have monopolised on the opportunity:

Image Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qL2ZQR-7lHgJB3ivlukzRm7H6sGwMJ7/view%C2%A0

Finally, to add flexibility to the flavour of their offerings, they assure prospective sponsors that they’re willing to collaborate on unique ideas as well before sharing who to get in contact with.

As well as playing into the desires of the people who’ll be reaching into their pockets in this context, this tactic shows off the team’s willingness to collaborate, something sponsors are sure to get excited about.

4) SC London

SC London stands for Software Craftsmanship London, and it sells itself as the place where passionate software craftspeople, community, experts, and thought leaders come together.

Image Source: https://sc-london.com/

To help with the navigation process and keep people hooked once they start reading their sponsorship proposal, the team cleverly included a table of contents:

Image Source: https://sc-london.com/

Not only does this improve readability, if the team have already convinced someone to contribute some cash to the cause, all they need do is jump to page 16 of the pdf at hand.

Upon describing the conference profile, SC London take a similar approach to Tech Budapest, with a few of their personal quirks:

Image Source: https://sc-london.com/

Injecting a little personality by sharing the above “innumerable & invaluable amounts” section, they both manage to share a little more insight into their brand and the atmosphere of the team that will inevitably trickle down into the event.

Focusing on the people yet again, they include quite a bit of social proof in their case for sponsorship, both from the speaker side and the attendee side:

Image Source: https://sc-london.com/

And, simply, they close with a thank you and a way to reach them on social, thus potentially bolstering their traffic and followers there, too:

Image Source: https://sc-london.com/

5) J and Beyond

J and Beyond is a dedicated Joomla conference in Cologne, Germany.

In terms of branding, J and Beyond really hits home by using unique illustrations for each tier of sponsorship on offer in their prospectus:

Image Source: https://jandbeyond.org/

As well as adding a little sparkle to the presentation, this quirk makes the pitch memorable in a sea of what may be a set of black and white presentations that potential sponsors have to dig through to find the one that’s right for them.

The J and Beyond team list their sponsorship benefits beside each illustration, but don’t rely on that exclusively. Similar to a few of the examples we’ve already run through, they compact all of the bonuses of coming aboard as one of their sponsors in a neat little table:

Image Source: https://jandbeyond.org/

Again, they also offer coffee and lunch break sponsorship packages to help those who want to get involved to find something that suits them.

6) DjangoCon EU

If the appeal of being a helping hand in what DjangoCon EU are going to produce amid the backdrop of the Danish canals they share at the top of their deck isn’t enough to entice a sponsor, there’s plenty more to attract partners to the conference.

Image Source: DjangoCon

As well as highlighting the key benefits of getting into a sponsorship agreement with DjangoCon EU, the team behind its production leverage a highly powerful method to show the popularity of their event and create a design to get in on it: scarcity:

Image Source: DjangoCon

Showing what has been sold in terms of sponsorship packages alongside what’s still available signals to potential sponsors that their competitors are snapping up what’s on offer. This implies that, as well as the obvious appeal, there’s a proven value in spending money on this kind of investment.

On top of all of that, the team behind DjangoCon provide details on what’s involved specifically on a contractual basis from sponsors. This covers questions they might otherwise have to spend quite some time responding to, increases the professional appeal of their brand, and shows that they’ve have awareness of the ins and outs of the sponsorship process:

Image Source: DjangoCon

Of course, as well as showing off the tangible ways sponsors will be included in the production of the event, showing the ripple effects of getting involved adds a human aspect to the prospect:

Image Source: DjangoCon

7) PyData

PyData is a forum for international community users and developers of data analysis tools.

To get a better idea of who that is, within the sponsorship prospectus the PyData folks have included graphics showing their audience’s preferred topics and their skill sets:

Image Source: https://pydata.org/

To show how they treat these attendees, and how sponsors can get involved with delighting them, they’ve summed up the benefits of sponsoring in three points:

Image Source: https://pydata.org/

Better yet, they showcase just how many people a potential sponsor will get to show themselves to:

Image Source: https://pydata.org/

As well as the usual benefits you can expect should you be in the market to sponsor a conference, if you should decide to work alongside PyData, they share that you’ll also be supporting a community, give the conference is organised by a non-profit team:

Image Source: https://pydata.org/

8) Intersection Conference

Intersection Conference, you might have guessed, is an event providing a place for the intersection of delegates from many countries, discussing how users interact with the creations of designers and developers. This is how they put it in their proposal:

Image Source: https://intersection-conference.eu/

Beyond their passion for empowering people’s successful use of products, the team showcases their passion for distributing those good intentions throughout the industry when they share their conference topics:

Image Source: https://intersection-conference.eu/

Starting with this as a solid foundation for what potential supporters can expect, the deck goes yet further when it moves to the subject of promotion as the team offer a multitude of channels to distribute the message sponsors want to share:

Image Source: https://intersection-conference.eu/

This team are mindful that not only should they include sponsors on the day of the event, so too should they be part of the preparations and promotion ahead of time.

Of course they share their packages for on-the-day perks, but they add something special: a media sponsorship option where they make a call for a free-of-charge sponsorship to help with getting the word out about the conference:

Image Source: https://intersection-conference.eu/

Finally, they share their ticket price, and expected number of attendees to make sure their prospective sponsors know exactly who they’ll enjoy working with.

Alternative Approaches

Up until now, all of the sponsorship proposals we’ve been looking at were presented in .pdf form or through slideshow decks, but there’s a few other approaches out there that’ve worked for conference organisers in the past, so let’s consider some examples there as well.

A Web Page

9) Uphill Conf

One of the main drawbacks of using a .pdf or .ppt or similar for your conference sponsorship prospectus is its lack of interactivity. Sure, you can use hyperlinks, but having the dynamic options of a web page and the limitless creativity that permits is one step beyond. Uphill Conf take advance of that right on their sponsor page:

Image Source: https://uphillconf.com/sponsor-packages/%C2%A0

10) JSConf Budapest

In addition to buttons, bells, and whistles, multimedia options are an extra perk you get when you swap from something static to a webpage. Video is just one way you can utilise that, just like JSConf Budapest:

And why not throw in one of those buttons we talked about too, for good measure?

Image Source: https://jsconfbp.com/sponsoration

11) AmsterdamJS

As well as the reach sponsors have grown to expect from conferences on the day, the owned, earned and paid media outlets that conferences showcase themselves on nowadays are becoming more and more lucrative avenues for those same sponsors to get involved with.

AmsterdamJS understand this and, as such, one of the first things you see on their site when it comes to the benefits their sponsors enjoy is the reach of their videos and the website itself:

Image Source: https://jsnation.com/sponsors/

As well as that aspect of online broadcasting, they use their sponsorship page to showcase one of their recap videos too:

12) Drupal Con

Drupal Con is… well, a Drupal conference. Their homepage shows a depth of knowledge when it comes to how to make data accessible and how to make it resonate.

They accomplish this using a few different data points. Most notably, the purchasing influence of their audience:

Image Source: https://events.drupal.org/why-sponsor

And their specific Drupal level, key if you consider how accurately potential sponsors can understand who they’ll be dealing with should they join the sponsorship team:

Image Source: https://events.drupal.org/why-sponsor

A ‘Contact Us’ Form

Some conferences seeking sponsorship prefer to keep things simple. Sometimes, a simple form layout can work. For a few examples, you can check out these fine folks:

A ‘Mail:To’ Link

A word of caution rather than recommendation on this point. For past few years, many, many articles sharing tips and extensions that can block mail:to links have emerged.

For me, there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for the default email client on my machine to open, slowly chug towards being operational, and then asking me if I’m absolutely sure I want to close it.

I haven’t had to deal with that in the recent past because of tutorials like the ones I highlighted above, and I’m sure a lot of people are in the same boat as me. Furthermore, as a marketer, I’m always aware that mail:to links aren’t that easily trackable, meaning it’s hard to get a grip on how successful they are if you choose to incorporate them into your sponsorship drive.

Other than being hard to measure and a bit irksome for your visitors, they can often get overlooked, meaning it might be worthwhile having a think about an alternative like the many lovely options we’ve seen.

In Conclusion

Note: Any and all logos displayed here are the property of their respective owners. We encourage you to check their websites out and sponsor them if anything here seems like a fit for you, if that’s not too forward. ?

With any luck, there’ll be something in this post that can help you get another sponsor (or several). While you’re here, and if you’re hungry for more, you can check out some stories and tips we’ve previously published on the subject of sponsorship: