THE SPONSORSHIP SEEKER'S TOOLKIT - THIRD EDITION

This usable and informative guide to seeking sponsorship should be handled with scepticism. I can stand the liberal dusting of Americanised corporate sugar – they don’t tell you stuff, they offer ‘wisdom’. It’s OK that their experience lies mostly in hitching sports events to breweries – hardly the greatest matchmaking challenge, but we can extrapolate. They show how modern sponsors want to engage with an organisation’s audiences, and that successful sponsorship approaches start with the sponsors’ needs. They provide a useful corrective to the ‘world owes my organisation a living’ school of income generation. On Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) they are sound. ‘Writing you a cheque is not CSR.’ The planning tools are easy to use on a nifty CD-ROM. Their understanding of the sponsorship world is outwardly plausible but actually very skew-wiff. This is a very focused book. Perhaps a little too focused. An almost comically old-fashioned silo mentality finds false differentiations between ‘marketing people’, ‘fundraisers’ and those seeking sponsorship. Little thought is given to integrating corporate income generation as a whole. While embracing integration and understanding departmental structures on the sponsor/commercial side, they gloss over how arts and charities work.

‘Kim and Anne-Marie’ as they term themselves have a dirty little secret. They are phenomenal saleswomen trying to rationalise how they have succeeded in gaining large-scale sponsorship. They brush aside difficulties and objections in an irrepressible wave of entitlement and self-belief. In their valid attempt to understand sponsors, their hearts and minds have been captured by the corporate world. Their corporate groupiedom lacks balance.

The authors make most sense where they have real experience and interest. They have produced a very useful central ‘how to’ section that systematises what I’m willing to bet comes very naturally to them. When they stray from their awe-inspiring knowledge of how to get your foot in the door they get it quite badly wrong. Their section on brand has a distinct ‘dug up a book or asked a mate over a glass of wine’ look to it. It is also inaccurate. By all means use their bull’s-eye exercise to establish a few quick and dirty brand principles, but please don’t mistake the positioning of an event for an exposition of organisational brand. They understand the product line brand structure of consumer brands but also apply it to those seeking sponsorship. Very few not-for-profits work in this way. More scarily, they acknowledge the importance of brand management to sponsors but are oblivious to the necessity of brand reputation management to the arts and charities. Understanding sponsors’ needs does not mean ignoring the risks to reputation of inappropriate brand alliances. Their impatience implies any reticence is just woolly thinking to be overcome. Not good when you work for UNICEF.

Like magnificent great whites swimming implacably towards a target, ‘Kim and Anne-Marie’ tell us how marvellous the book is. Of ‘readers of previous editions who have raved non-stop’. These ladies sell without shame or irony. If you doubt what I’m saying take a good look at their photos on the back. As a pretty scary bottle blonde myself I can tell you I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to them.

To get the best from this ‘Bible of Sponsorship’ use the practical sections on how to plan, prepare hit lists, develop proposals, negotiate and service sponsors. Try to emulate their confidence and professionalism, and then add a large vat of hand-panned, finely flaked sea salt.