Ask for what the club needs, not what they gave last year

The first thing I did as president was figure out what the club needed and how to get it. I quickly realised we needed more money, but I couldn’t specify exactly what it was for. I knew our grounds needed investment, and costs were rising. Beyond that, I was still figuring things out.

What I did know was that we had to find the money somewhere. It would have been easy to send last year’s sponsors their usual invoice and look for the rest. Instead, here’s what I did.

One of the businesses on that list had supported the club for a long time. I began building a relationship with someone there before I became president. We met at presentation night. They were always going to be a sponsor. The question was how much they would contribute. If I had sent them a renewal at last year’s amount, they would have paid it. I had never asked what was possible.

So, I wrote them a letter. Here’s how it went, step by step.

I started by recognising their long support for the club and the community. Then, I explained our goals for the upcoming season and why it would cost more. I also offered something new for the club: naming rights. The team would carry their name for the year (we talk about identifying assets to sell in the Sponsorship Playbook). If I was going to ask for a larger amount, they needed to receive more in return, not just the same logo on the jersey at a higher price.

Next, I included the number and a line I now add to every proposal: we understand this is significant. I explained why I was asking them and not someone else. Finally, I included a mock-up of the jersey with their logo on it, as I mentioned last week.

I emailed it off on a Friday afternoon because I knew I’d be catching up with them the next day. A community event was on at our grounds that Saturday, and both the club and the business supported it. I said in the email that I’d see them there. That’s where I got the yes, in person, with no desk between us. It wasn’t luck. It was planned. It’s much easier to ask for a bigger contribution when you can both see that your goals for the community are aligned. Those are the one-percenters that get bigger deals over the line.

That letter didn’t go out cold, and it wouldn’t have worked that way. The relationship came first. Then came a letter that asked for nothing. Only after that was the actual request made. The conversation where you want nothing is what makes the next one possible.

I returned to most of our existing sponsors that pre-season with a bigger request, and most of them agreed. Not all, but most.

One more thing about the larger businesses on your sponsor list. They rarely have a single pool of money for something like a football club. Depending on where the club and what it does fit into their plans, the support might sit under community engagement, corporate responsibility, marketing, or somewhere else again. None of that is obvious from the outside. You find it by understanding the business, and the fastest way to do that is with someone inside who knows how it works and is willing to coach you through it.

Look at your sponsor list and ask yourself: how many of those businesses have you ever asked for anything other than what they gave last year?

Club Funding builds fundraising tools for clubs, and that’s how this gets paid for. This isn’t the pitch.

If you haven’t got the Sponsorship Playbook, it’s free and available here:

Jason Shannon — Founder, Club Funding. Former President, Oakey Senior Rugby League Football Club.