5 Virtual Ways to Bring in More Money for Your Association Chapter
Updated: Sep. 14, 2021 | Categories: Revenues
Many association chapters have robust sponsorship programs for partnerships that benefit everyone–the sponsor, the chapter as a whole, and individual members. Until COVID-19 caused everyone to pivot and reevaluate their association chapter engagement strategies, those benefits were provided primarily in-person at association chapter meetings, events and educational sessions.
The pandemic significantly decreased, and in some cases eliminated, a sponsor’s ability to connect with your members in-person, as they sponsored your in-person breakfasts, lunches, educational sessions, award dinners, etc. When so much went on hiatus, most association chapters didn’t wait for things to return to the way they were to re-engage their sponsors. They got creative and began to offer a number of virtual sponsorship options that both sponsors and members appreciated.
When your in-person events resume, a number of virtual association chapter sponsorship options will continue to fit well in your chapter. Sponsors will have the option of engaging with your association chapter members virtually and in-person, and you’ll have some additional streams of non-dues revenue.
5 sources of virtual association chapter sponsorship revenue
- Blog posts. Is there a topic a sponsor would like to share with your association chapter members that would work as a single blog post or a series of posts? Give your sponsors the opportunity to write. They can include links to their organization’s website and connect with readers in follow up conversations through comments on posts.
- Virtual event presentations. Most likely, most of your virtual events have slides, even if it’s just a cover slide that shows while attendees wait for the presentation to start. Offer sponsors the chance to have their logo and, depending on the format of the presentation, a short blurb about their company, displayed prominently on the presentation slides.
- Chapter website. You probably accept ads from sponsors for your newsletter, so why not use that same approach with pages of your association chapter website or even entire sections of your site? Maybe your blog, your member forum or even your job board could work well for sponsorship and increase the strength of your site as well as your virtual chapter engagement as sponsorship of those sections could also include providing content.
- Job board. Your job board can be a valuable resource for your association chapter members to have access to openings that are curated for your industry. . It can also be a powerful revenue generator for the chapter to have companies pay for posting their open positions.
- Speaking as part of a virtual event. Is one of your sponsorship options the ability to speak at an in-person event, either on a topic for an entire presentation or a few minutes before or at the end of an in-person session? The same principle works well virtually. Give your sponsor the chance to talk in a virtual meeting about their offerings and how they relate to the topic you’re about to cover. And ask if they have a topic they’d like to present as a standalone session.
You may currently offer sponsorship opportunities as complete packages, for example Gold, Silver or Bronze. And that may work for many of your association chapter sponsors. But there are probably additional organizations that aren’t ready to commit to an entire sponsorship package or who are looking for an extra connection to your association chapter members. Offering these virtual sponsorship options al la carte or as add ons to existing packages can provide sponsors with additional, easy ways to connect with your members and give you additional revenue to help put on all the programs and events your members expect.
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