Sponsorship pitching, and FUDCON sponsorship request draft

[Walter Bender]

We don't need a general fund-raising pitch, but we need clear,
concise, actionable answers to the question of how can my company
help? (For a wide variety of industries.) There is a marketing
component to getting Sugar out into the world and growing the
community even if it is volunteer driven and not-for-profit.

BTW, here is my latest elevator pitch (only nne words):

"Investing locally in learning that works for every child."

I am considering a tenth word:

"Investing locally in global learning that works for every child."

-walter

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 2:24 PM, Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com> wrote:
> (For Walter's action item, but sending to the list as well for
> open-tasticness.)
>
> This was going to be a braindump of questions on sponsorship, value
> proposition, and the like, but I think my puzzlement boils down to one
> thing: I'm not convinced we need a general fundraising pitch.
>
> I'm not clear on the problems (both specific immediate ones, and a
> longer-term general class of them having such a pitch would solve, and for
> the examples I know of (servers and FUDCON travel funding), it feels
> backwards - we should make funding/resources requests specifically for
> hosting and travel$, /then/ combine them into a first round of a fundraising
> pitch if it makes sense.
>
> Putting my money where my mouth is, a pitch outline for FUDCON funding is
> below. Once it's done, I could see this being generalizable.
>
> Please forgive the crudeness of this pitch. I don't know much about writing
> for funding/sponsorships, and would love feedback on how to make this better
> / get better at it in general.
>
> --Mel
>
> ------
>
> * 1-sentence version of what we're asking for. ("To fully utilize SL
> participation in FUDCON, we need housing for N people for Y nights, 123,456
> miles' worth of airline tickets, $Z for presentation materials.")
>
> * The Sugar Labs Mission, and a rocketpitch, from Greg.
>
> * Now the important part: how FUDCON will make a Giant Giant Leap towards
> accomplishing that mission. , and how us accomplishing our mission helps you
> accomplish your mission through specific contributions towards your
> projects. Varies with audience.
>
> For instance, Google's mission: "organize the world's information and make
> it universally accessible and useful." Projects include things like Summer
> of Code ("we plan on soliciting/refining project selections at FUDCON, and
> need these key people present") and Google for Educators ("we'll be running
> workshops with teachers on topics like 'searching for information in the
> classroom,' and would love to work with you on this, or at least share
> results.")
>
> * "Does this sound good? Here's what we need." Here we insert list of people
> we'd like to fund (this info needs to be solicited, do we know exactly what
> is needed?). Include:
> ** Name
> ** Past SL-related work
> ** What them going to FUDCON would do for them and SL
> ** Type of assistance needed (airline miles/plane ticket? lodging? other?)
> ** What they're doing, independently of this request for sponsorship, to get
> themselves there ("I'm mowing lawns after school all next week to pay for
> half my airfare.")
>
> * How you can help. (Send money here, talk to this person, etc.)
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org