Fundraising is about raising money to pay for what you want to do. While that might deliver benefits that the funder supports, such as better opportunities for community sport, you’re defining the project.

Sponsorship, on the other hand, is a partnership. Yes, you’re gaining a financial benefit, but you’re also under an obligation to deliver value to your sponsor such as brand enhancement or alignment, advertising and employee engagement. For this reason you need to be clear at the outset about what you can offer as well as what you want.

Fundraising

There are two main ways you can fundraise: personal donations from club members (including past members) and their friends and families; and from grant-giving bodies.

In both cases, make sure you’re clear about what you want, why you want it, and how much it will cost.

Fundraising through personal donations

There are all sorts of activities you can organise to generate personal donations of various sizes to fund smaller projects. These include sponsored rows, club life memberships (which brings forward membership revenue), ‘name a brick’ in any building work, and auctions of promises or raffles.

Fundraising from grant-giving bodies

The specific grants in the Funding Sources section will mostly have forms that ask for any information they will be using to consider the application. For more general fundraising you should think about the following points:

Sponsorship

Take a targeted approach. For each potential sponsor, ask yourselves, ‘What does company X want or need to achieve and how can we help it achieve that objective?’ Not only will company’s money be used more effectively, but the club will be more attractive to other companies. Keep thinking about profile and media coverage.

A company should be getting at least £1 of publicity for every £1 of sponsorship.

Often, sponsors are found through personal contacts, but that doesn’t reduce the importance of being able to offer their company value.

How much to ask for?

Be specific in asking for money rather than vaguely saying ‘anything you could give would help’. For example:

• Name a specific sum – ‘We are writing for a donation of £1,000 towards this work’.
• Give a range of amounts – ‘We are aiming to get one donation of £500, one of £200 and three of £100 to complete our total of £2,000 for this project. This shows roughly how much you want from each sponsor.
• Quote other sums already pledged – ‘We have already had a payment of £500′.
• Produce a shopping list and highlight one that you think the donor would be interested in paying for. The idea is to give a range of prices that people can afford and something specific and relevant to fund.

Read our guide to sponsorship and partnership marketing, which summarises the British Rowing Partnership Principles and supplements rule 1-9 in the British Rowing Rules of Racing, which states that there is no restriction on advertising material unless it is inappropriate or harmful to the image of rowing or would impair recognition of a crew by its club colours.

Sponsorship tips

• Demonstrate that you get coverage as a club – how many followers do your social media channels have? How often do you post? What are your post engagements?
• Approach a company for advertising (on boats, kit, trailers, or at competitions you run, for example) then give them information on target audiences. Get them interested, then draw them in. Show them how much publicity you get.
• Keep an accurate record of who you have approached, the response, whether it just wasn’t the right time for the company or whether the club’s aims and objectives did not match the company’s.
• Good sponsorship letters contain realistic, itemised targets and demonstrate the attraction and value to the sponsor. Bad sponsorship letters are vague, contain little to attract the sponsor and are not followed up by the originator.