You are the sponsorship officer of a non-profit arts organization. The programme unit of your organization is planning an arts programme with inadequate funding and they are seeking your assistance to invite sponsorship. You have to identify a suitable media sponsor and write a sponsorship proposal to the targeted media sponsor. Also, you have to suggest a cash sponsor.

The background information, advices from your manager, programme details, your tasks are listed in the assignment guideline. Please study them carefully.

The assignment should be submitted as a hard copy and typed in English, including:

1. An assignment cover page with course code, course title, assignment title, student ID and student name

*2. A sponsorship invitation letter (not less than 400 words)

*3. A sponsorship proposal (not less than 1000 words)

4. A separate page listing a target cash sponsor (not less than 200 words)

*For 2 & 3, you can copy the texts provided in the assignment guideline. You can rephrase / reorganize the text to make your proposal more effective.

The assignment should be submitted as a hard copy to the mail box marked "SM2227" outside SCM general office and a soft copy through blackboard.

Reference

1. Format of a sponsorship invitation letter

- School Administration Federation

Source: Grey, Anne-Marie and Kim Skildum-Reid. The sponsorship seeker's toolkit. London : McGraw-Hill, 1999.

- Brogan Symphony Orchestra

Source: Ciconte, Barbara L. and Jeanne G. Jacob. Fundraising basics : a complete guide. 2nd ed. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Publishers, 2001.

- Newham Women's Employment Project

Source: Cook, Tim. Avoiding the wastepaper basket : a practical guide for applying to grant-making trusts. London : London Voluntary Service Council, 1996.

2. Format of a sponsorship proposal

- The Sydney International Fishing Expo

Source: Grey, Anne-Marie and Kim Skildum-Reid. The sponsorship seeker's toolkit. London : McGraw-Hill, 1999.

- The Thurston Family Foundation and Port City Partnership for the Arts

Source: Brown, Larissa Golden and Martin John Brown. Demystifying grant seeking : what you really need to do to get grants. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 2001.

Evaluation of Assignment 4 (total: 100%)

1. Proposal organization (20%)

• ideas are clearly presented and organized, layout is neat and tidy, with attractive pictures to illustrate your ideas

2. Identify right sponsors (media and cash sponsor) (20%)

• Have a good SWOT analysis. Invite sponsor that can help to reduce the marketing weaknesses and threats while increasing its strengths and opportunities
• sponsors that have similar goals or objectives as your organization / programme
• sponsors that have supported programmes of similar nature before (you have to provide facts / research data as support)
• sponsors that have shown efforts or input resources in improving their company images recently
• sponsors that can provide the best support among the others e.g. reaching more target audience, more publicity channels, etc.

3. Proper sponsor investments (20%)
whether you know what to ask for, how much to ask for (based on research on similar local programmes) and when to ask for (setting proper deadlines to receive the support from the sponsors).

4. Proper sponsor benefits / achievements (20%)
Understand the need and offer appropriate benefits to the sponsors in return. In this case, the sponsors WILL NOT ask for benefits of equal monetary value in return (which is also true for many arts sponsors), but it is important to show that you have fully utilized the marketing and the public relations resources to show respect and thanks to them.

5. Creativity ideas (20%)
whether the sponsorship suggestions in the proposal are fresh, interesting and feasible.

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(assignment originated by Ellen Yuen)