YGM Total Resource Campaigns

Taking the Uncertainty out of Sponsorship

October 15 2016 admin Sponsor development, TRC, YGM 0 comments Tags: chamber, sponsorship development, total resource campaign, TRC, YGM

If your chamber is thinking about a sponsorship plan, there isn’t one perfect plan, just like there isn’t one perfect chamber. Your leadership needs to evaluate various types of plans and determine what will work best for your chamber.

There are four types of sponsorship plans:

Per event
Annual bundled program
Sponsorships through tiered memberships
Total resource campaigns.

Once your chamber identifies what type of plan it has or would like to execute, it needs to determine the goals of the plan.

Are you looking strictly for financial revenue?
Do you want to initiate organizational pride?
Are you looking for an increase in awareness for your organization throughout the community?

Next, your chamber will need to determine what inventory will be included in the plan. Items we are seeing trending nationally include:

Workforce Development/Education programming and events
Women’s initiatives
Medical events & First Responder recognition programs

Educational seminars during the lunch hour (aka “Boxed Lunch & Learn” series with attendance cost of $10-25) are being replaced with substantial professional development programs – at least half a day – with at least $100 admission. Chamber leadership programs are being reinvented to include professional development components as business leaders are saying “city field trips” aren’t enough any more.

Selling the Inventory

Once your inventory is established, you have to make certain you can articulate your programs. If you can’t explain it in a very short narrative, you probably won’t be able to sell it because your sponsor won’t be able to sell it to their customer base either.

You also need to be sure you can answer what the program is really worth. Beyond the budget, is the topic relevant and unique, and is the audience popular to the sponsorship.

Think through the real value of each sponsorship, of how a business could market it, of how a business could benefit from it.

If you need help working through the details of sponsorships, contact YGM at ebey@nullygmtrc.com. We will be happy to discuss it with you.

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Looking to Increase Sponsorships

October 09 2016 admin Sponsor development, TRC, YGM 0 comments Tags: ACCE, sponsorship development, TRC, YGM

Be the Change Your Chamber Needs

This summer’s 2016 ACCE Conference in Savannah, Ga., was amazing, and I keep thinking about how sponsorship development was the hot topic. We were delighted that all the sessions on sponsorship were relocated into the overflow room due to such tremendous interest.

I co-presented “Sponsorship Strategy: Organizing for Success” with Loren Traylor of the Birmingham Business Alliance at the ACCE.

The great tennis player Arthur Ashe once said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” His theory applies to most of life, but especially to sponsorship development.

Define Sponsorships

In creating a sponsorship plan, a chamber must first have sponsorship. Nationally, we are seeing a trend with many nonprofit organizations – from schools to churches to regional charities – using the term “sponsor” for a variety of meanings. This is affecting the corporate landscape and how chambers are able to secure sponsorship dollars.

When YGM trains volunteers all over the country to execute a Total Resource Campaign – just one form of an organized sponsorship plan – many volunteers will express a sense of exhaustion of having to volunteer to go secure another sponsorship.

They will say “we just had to get a sponsor for Sally’s soccer uniform last week” or “Johnny’s Boy Scout troop was just getting sponsors for camp last month.” However, following training and securing an understanding of Chamber sponsorships, they quickly articulate “these are not sponsorships.”

How TRC Sponsorships are Different

What a YGM sponsorship is all about is talking to business contacts about utilizing the chamber for marketing and advertising of their business. Asking business owners about these sponsorships are much different – and often much easier – asks.

An organized sponsorship plan will increase your financial resources, grassroots marketing, and volunteer involvement while providing the chambers with both program and staff development.

The fall is an excellent time to begin planning for your chamber’s future. If you would like to speak with us at YGM about how we can help, you may reach us at ebey@nullygmtrc.com.

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Partnering with chambers for a stronger business tomorrow

August 08 2015 dcrum YGM 0 comments Tags: business, chambers, Online System, volunteer coaching, YGM

There are changes going on here at YGM Total Resource Campaigns. We have a new look to our website, and we are making some updates to how we provide our clients with the materials used throughout each TRC.

What hasn’t changed is our dedication to leading chambers around the country to their most successful sponsorship campaigns to date.

YGM was founded upon the idea that personal service was important, and we continue to base our work ethic around that idea today. Part of what sets YGM apart is that chamber representatives know us individually, and we know them. We work together as a team in order to make their campaigns successful.

We don’t simply hand clients a packet of materials along with some suggestions as to how to proceed.

We provide:

training geared toward each chamber’s needs,
volunteer coaching, expert advice,
materials taken from our proven method, and
access to our unique Online System.

More importantly, we are available to each chamber throughout the process. Whenever there is a question, we are never more than a telephone call, text, or email away.

Each time a chamber we partner with succeeds, we succeed. At YGM, we are a team, working together for your success.

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