CMU International Film Festival
2023 Sponsorship Strategy
Chapter 1: Why We Get Sponsors
Sponsorship is the lifeblood of the festival.
Without Sponsorships. We would need to charge 44$/ticket.
Every $1250 raised through sponsorship reduces the ticket price by $1.
This year we are increasing our budget by approximately $40,000. We are adding a Youth Outreach Program and a Short Film Competition.
To accomplish our goals this year we need to increase our sponsorships level to $68,155 . We need to raise an extra $20,705 above what we raised last year.
In this presentation, we present 4 data-supported strategies that will help us accomplish this goal.
Strategy 1: Make Old Friends Gold Friends
CMU International Film Festival Relies Heavily on CMU Departmental Funding.
If we rely on old friends, donors in 2022, we can expect to raise $36,350.
We know that Covid was a disruption. The Film Festival transitioned to virtual and was largely bailed out by CMU Emergency Funds. 2022 signified a great unmasking for CMU IFF. But with two years of discontinuity, some of our previous sponsorship partners were overlooked. This includes at the University of Pittsburgh, on campus and in the community. Let's begin by reclaiming this value and opening old relationships.
By quickly scanning through the chart, we identified 18 unrestricted sponsors who donated in 2018 or 2019 or 2020 but not 2022 for a combined for a total of $20,500. Let's target them and bring them back.
Congrats! We just made it back into the range of last year. And we're getting within reach of our target.
Strategy 2: Elevate Our Returning Sponsors
We've contacted all of our old friends from the past few years. I was really hoping that that's all the work we would need to put in, but that's not going to be the case this year. How else can we claim value in this year's fundraising campaign?
Looking at our historical data, some of our sponsors donate a consistent amount over the years.
We have identified 8 prospects as consistent sponsors at the same amount or increasing amounts. Their total value is $26,500. Let's try to elevate these long-term partners to increase their contribution by 25%. If we are successful, we can raise another $6,625.
Now we're getting somewhere.
If you are concerned with how to sweeten a deal with a potential sponsor, remember as a development staff member, you are an agent of the festival. We create merchandise, run social media campaigns, offer complimentary tickets, and do networking dinners and workshops. These 'perks' can be negotiated with corporate sponsors. Use it to your advantage. Giving our sponsors the opportunity to participate can be a great way to sweeten our standard promotional offerings to ensure our sponsors feel connected and included in the festival.
Strategy 3: Lift The Restrictions
Many of our donors restrict their funding to specific screenings or other purposes. Restricted funds help ensure the specific interests of our sponsors, but are limiting for us. Most importantly, restricted funds choke out space when two or more sponsors wish to sponsor the same line item. Let's take a look at the breakdown of restricted to unrestricted funds in 2022.
In 2022, 12 of our sponsors chose to sponsor specific films. However, we should not assume that these sponsorships need to stay conditional. If we can lean into our ongoing relationships and land unrestricted sponsorship early, we can secure space for new sponsors who may enter in at a restricted level.
If this is the case, then we can estimate 1 new aficionado level sponsor for every previous sponsor we can convert at a value of $500. Further, let's estimate that we will be successful a conservative 25% of the time. In other words, the effort is worth 125$/sponsor.
Doing the math we get: Show illustration of the math. 125x12 = $1500
We've raised the dial a little bit. But we've also created space to build partnerships with new organizations who may want to have more restrictions to their funding. Furthermore, we are putting sponsors on a path towards growth with us in the future.
Wait! We're forgetting an important segment. What about those who provided in-kind sponsorships? Are there any prospects who may be interested in growing into monetary donors?
The Design and Promotion Rows jump out. We already have a design staff, so we no longer need design in-kind sponsorships. Design services can be expensive, so perhaps this group would like to make a donation instead. For Promotion Partners, we'll have to persuade them that we can provide them with marketing value or compensate them with nice perks. Let's tally the potential identifying and securing these two new potential partners at the Aficionado rate of $500.
With $1000 added. The Dial Keeps getting closer.
Strategy 4: New Friends Are Made of Silver
Wow. I thought that we'd be able to accomplish our goal without expanding our community footprint. But we're a development team after all, and CMU IFF is a community event with a 15 year legacy. By activating our old leads we fell just about $3000 short of our goal. Let's return to our Tree Map and compare our cumulative data with 2022 to see what we can learn.
It looks like 2022 is pretty consistent with our historical data set. But we did notice that in previous years, universities like Pitt, Point Park and Carlow had a greater involvement.
While CMU IFF currently serves the CMU community at majority, we need to shift the balance and even out our participation with the larger community. How can we do this? By making new friends outside of the CMU bubble.
But the biggest question: At what level to bring them in?
Looking at the graph here of cumulative sponsorship data since 2018, we see that over the years Festival Producers and Directors, and Celebrities provide the most value. The University of Pittsburgh has entered at the Producer and Celebrity levels in the past whereas the Community has entered as Director, Celebrity, Presenting Partner, and Underwriter.
For First Time Sponsors, this number favors targeting the Community at the the Director and Presenting Partner levels ($1500-2500) sponsorship level and the University of Pittsburgh at the Producer or Celebrity level. ($1000-$5000)
Furthermore, we've noticed a surprising paucity in the amount of film companies that participate in CMU IFF. Let's bridge this gap! If we can identify and secure 10/30 new friends from the business community at the Director level, and 5/10 new Pitt departments at the Celebrity Level. We can secure an additional $30,000.
And Voila We've Done it!
Epilogue: Reeling in The Gold Sponsor
I'm sure you've noticed the elephant not in the room. Wouldn't it be so much easier and nicer to just secure another Gold Reel Sponsor and save all the other effort?
After all, a Gold Reel Sponsor contributes $25,000, almost enough to fund our entire gap.
Heat Map of Historical Data 2011-2019
Though it would be nice, historically this appears to be rather challenging, and perhaps even unnecessary. Consider the effort needed to make these large conversions and the strength of data that we need to show.
For this reason we need to double down on what we can do first. Let's identify our gold reel prospects. We can try to bring them in for a multiyear deal at the producer level, and then make the ask for a large sponsorship using the strategies outlined above for future years.
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