State of the Map/Planning/Managing Sponsorship
When seeking sponsorship it is important to have a plan and to make sure that each team member knows their role. You may have a specific "sponsorship team" and you could exclude them from the programme selection team so there is not any conflict of interest (e.g. telling a company you will accept their talk without making that part of the agreement).
The State of the Map working group uses a combination of spreadsheets and GitHub to track progress and are happy to share our methods on request.
Create a list of potential sponsors
Develop a list (or spreadsheet) of your potential sponsors, these are typical columns you might include:
- Company name & website
- including the contact details for the individual in that organisation, if known
- Past SotMs they've sponsored, or local events/chapters. Good to be aware of that when contacting them.
- Name of your team member that is the sponsor's main contact. Encourages consistency in who they communicate with, makes sure someone is assigned to reply to them.
- Locality (your city, your country, based in your country, or international). For local or regional conferences try to work with local companies as much as possible.
- Priority. If your list is very long, you can rank each potential sponsors according to how interested you think they will be. Larger companies will have more budget.
- Last contact date & status. To inform when is good to follow up with more contact, have they already declined, or have they decided.
When a company agrees to sponsor your conference, there will be multiple tasks to do. You might organise by having another list, spreadsheet (or Github issue template) ready. Tasks will include sending them an invoice, confirming money is received, getting their logo, putting their logo on the website, and other aspects related to the perks of sponsorship.
Develop pack content/tiers
Potential sponsors will look for a number of benefits in return for their money. Develop between 3 and 5 packages with varying levels of benefits for them to pick from. This step should be done with the budget in mind - how many sponsors at each level do you need in order to meet your budget?
You might have your highest level be substantial for a company that wants something specific or limited, like sponsoring a dinner before the conference starts.
The bottom level ~€500 of sponsorship can be difficult to justify if it's only the company name. It might be better to ditch this and encourage companies buy the higher-tier "professional" ticket to attend and support OSM that way.
Perks of sponsorship used int he past
- Complimentary passes/tickets. Number of them depends on conference level. Most ticket sites allow you to create "vouchers" so they still register the same way, but without extra cost.
- Exhibition space - a table that delegates will frequently pass. Company can display what they are about and be visible for delegates to speak to them.
- Rolling slides - a slide(s) on a powerpoint that you show in breakout space and/or in place of speaker slides during breaks.
- Logo displayed - put it on banners, on the website, in printed guidebooks, on screens in breakout spaces.
- Social media - give a 'tweet' that the company is a sponsor. Say what they do, or a message from them. Could be a long-form blog post if you have that.
- Naming rights - E.g. the social event is thanks to MegaCorp. Say/display their name whenever that item is mentioned.
- Allowing placement of leaflets at the conference - have set tables/rooms for this so they don't get messy. Could hand them out at registration or in a bag.
Make sure you can know what you an offer before you do so at this early stage. You might decide not to print a guidebook/programme for environmental or cost reasons, so don't lock yourself into that because of sponsorship agreements.
If you are stuck for ideas, please contact "team AT stateofthemap DOT org" so that we can help you. See also the levels in packs of past conferences.
What is normal and appropriate will vary by country. It can be good to have someone on your team that is familiar with the companies sponsoring local events. If you are running a local or regional SotM, sponsors may expect to pay less than the international event.
Design pack PDF (artwork)
Once you have agreed you sponsorship levels, you should create a simple PDF that you can share with the potential sponsors. Keep this as short as possible. If you set out you sponsorship levels in a table then you aim for a finished PDF of no more than 6 pages.
Example:
It's good to remind them of what the conference, and OpenStreetMap is. Their sponsorship will make the event happen, so remind them why it's good that the event happens and why it is good for the OSM ecosystem (especially if they use & like the data). Include photos of the local community running the event, an OSM event similar in size to yours, and maybe the space or location you'll be in.
Contact sponsors
With a finished PDF now is the time to contact the sponsors. If you have assigned a member of your team to each potential sponsor, then have them contact the relevant sponsors (possibly using a template email). This process may take some time and you will likely have to send reminder emails. It is therefore a good idea to track (e.g. in a spreadsheet) the date at which each potential sponsor was last contacted.
Questions from sponsors
The sponsors may come back with questions for you. These are some common questions which you might choose to preempt with information in the pack.
- Are there speaking opportunities for sponsors?
- Session selection is separated from sponsorship agreements (different teams) to ensure it is selected on merit of the subject, but sponsors can propose sessions like anyone else.
- SotM 2025 explicitly offered a "5 minute spoken introduction" for some tiers.
- Is there a timeline or deadline for sponsoring?
- Sponsors now being accepted, logo will be added to site shortly after payment.
- Earlier is better, it helps our planning and gets your logo seen sooner.
- Some benefits have deadlines (e.g. designing banners with logos & printing them) but they have not passed (or been set) yet.
- We will have the capacity to accept new sponsors in the month before the conference.
Track payments
Congratulations - you have your first sponsor! At this stage you may want to hand over to someone to arrange the payment. Either way, make sure you have a way of recording whether a payment is complete or still outstanding. Update your budget accordingly.
To do : Add invoice template.
Follow up on benefits
For each successful sponsor you will also need a way to track that you make good on your offers. For example, if you offered them free tickets, make sure they get them! For the international State of the Map it is common to offer space in a conference guidebook and an exhibition stand. Collecting the required content for the guidebook and providing information about the exhibition stands both take time and planning. Ensure that someone in the team is responsible for this.
To do : Add exhibition booth template.