When should I reach out to companies for sponsorships? what is the best time before the season starts?

Competition Fundraising
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I have written a sponsor letter and have a long list of companies I am going to send it to when is the best time for the 2024 season

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It’s never too early! Just be prepared to do demos if your potential sponsors would like one.

Edit: In fact the earlier the better because the quicker you can acquire the funds, the better you can budget and plan for the upcoming season.

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Grants and Sponsorship should be a year long activity! Whose to say you have to get them during the build season? In fact you shouldn’t only be looking during build.

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We always start as soon as the year starts. But some companies might not be able to provide sponsorships until build season starts because that’s also around the time that the fiscal year starts and their budgets reset. However, this is a minority of most companies and there’s probably an equal amount that haven’t spent their budget yet and can give some to you.

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The general rule is “now would be good, yesterday would have been better.” At least, that always seems to be the case. :grin:

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you should also keep a living document of fundraising/sponsorships and grants that are available in your area that you pass on to future years.

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This. Very useful. I have a huge extensive list of grants and companies that i keep track of, along with some other ideas om playing around for a better business team. I may release something about it at some point.

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Our favorite time to do it is over the summer. The studetns with a mentor or parent will take the bot usually in a van to the sponsors facility and do a presentation and check out their business. On other occasions we will pack a bot up and visit a industrial drive, doing a cold stop into each of the business’s there, this has been suprisingly successful for us. We also occasionaly do this on days off school or half days.

Our student’s “pay their own way”, most with empowered, guided fundraising like this and others instead of writing checks.

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