Questions to Ask Sponsors
Questions for anyone seeking sponsorship for an event, team, podcast, festival or nonprofit programme, to ask a prospective sponsor before you build a proposal or sign anything. They cover what the sponsor is trying to achieve, who actually decides, when the money exists, what they expect in return, exclusivity, approvals, reporting, and what would make them come back next year.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What made you take this meeting?
The answer tells you whether you are talking to someone with a live budget, someone doing a favour for a mutual contact, or someone gathering market intelligence. All three are worth an hour, but only one is worth a proposal, and you cannot tell which is which from the calendar invitation.
- 2
Have you sponsored anything like this before, and how did it go?
Past sponsorships set the reference price and the reference expectations, whether or not anyone says so. Ask what they would do differently, because that answer is a list of requirements they have not yet thought to give you.
- 3
What are you trying to get out of a sponsorship?
Awareness, recruiting, sales leads, retaining an existing customer, community goodwill and an executive's personal interest are six different deals that look identical on a sponsorship deck. Everything you propose afterwards should be built for whichever they name.
- 4
Who are you actually trying to reach?
Sponsors often describe an audience that is narrower than yours, or a different one entirely: hiring engineers rather than selling to them, or reaching the parents rather than the players. If their audience is a slice of yours, say so early and price the slice rather than overselling the whole.
- 5
How will you judge whether this worked, and when?
Ask for the measure and the date together. A sponsor who evaluates in December on a metric they have not told you about will not renew, and you will not know why. If they have no measure, you have an opportunity to propose one they can defend internally.
- 6
Which budget does this come from?
Marketing, brand, recruiting, community relations, the foundation, and a director's discretionary line all have different sizes, cycles, approval routes and appetites for risk. This one answer often explains everything else about how the conversation goes.
- 7
When does your financial year turn over, and when are decisions made?
Most sponsorship is lost to timing rather than to a no. Budgets are committed months before they are spent, and money left at the end of a year is a different opportunity from money planned at the start of one. Ask when the planning conversation happens and get into it.
- 8
Who signs, and who else has to agree?
Ask for names and roles, not a department. Legal, procurement, a brand team, and someone senior who has never heard of you can each independently stop this, and the person in front of you may not volunteer that they are not the decision maker.
- 9
What size are we talking about, so I do not waste your time on the wrong tier?
Blunt, and it works more often than people expect, because sponsors dislike reading three proposals as much as you dislike writing them. Even a range or a comparison to something they did last year keeps you from pitching double or, more damagingly, half.
- 10
What have other people asked you for that you have said no to?
You are collecting their internal rules without making them recite policy. Common answers involve exclusivity they cannot grant, data they cannot receive, logo placements their brand team forbids, and anything that reads as an endorsement.
- 11
Do you need category exclusivity, and how do you define the category?
Exclusivity is the single most expensive thing a sponsor can ask for and the one most often agreed casually. Pin down the definition: a bank may consider a payments app a competitor, which quietly removes a whole tier of your other prospects.
- 12
What would you not want your name next to?
Brand safety is easier to discuss before a problem than after one. Ask about speakers, content, other sponsors and political associations. Their answer also tells you how much internal scrutiny this deal will get later.
- 13
Do you want your people there, and doing what?
Staff attendance is where sponsorships either become real relationships or quietly die. A sponsor who wants a recruiting table, a speaking slot, or ten employees volunteering has a much higher chance of renewing than one who wants only a logo.
- 14
What can you offer besides money?
Product, venue space, printing, catering, legal hours, distribution to their own mailing list and staff time all have real value and often come from budgets that are easier to release than cash. Ask this before they say the cash number is fixed, not after.
- 15
What reporting do you need afterwards, in what format, and by when?
The report is what your contact takes to whoever approved the spend, so it decides renewal more than the event does. Ask what their internal template looks like and build your measurement to match it rather than sending a photo gallery.
- 16
What has to be approved before we publish anything with your name on it?
Logo usage, press releases, social posts and photography usually run through a brand or communications team on a timescale that surprises event organisers. Ask for the turnaround in working days and for the name of the person who does it, then build your deadlines backwards.
- 17
What does your contracting process look like, and how long does it take?
Procurement, vendor onboarding, insurance certificates, tax forms and payment terms can add two months to a deal that was agreed in a meeting. Ask specifically about payment terms, since sixty or ninety days after invoice may land well after you have paid for the venue.
- 18
Is this a one-off, or could it be a multi-year arrangement?
Worth asking even when the answer is no, because the reason is informative. Some sponsors cannot commit beyond a financial year as a matter of policy, which is different from not being interested, and it tells you how to frame the renewal conversation later.
- 19
If this goes well, what would make you increase it next year?
Asks them to describe the successful version in their own words, which is more reliable than the objective they gave you earlier. Whatever they name here is the thing to measure deliberately and to lead with in the follow-up report.
- 20
If you were going to say no, what would the reason be?
A closing question that surfaces the real objection while you can still address it. Most sponsors will answer honestly because it is framed hypothetically, and the answer is usually specific: timing, audience fit, an internal rule, or a competitor already involved.
Running the sponsor conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Before the meeting
Before the meeting
- Look up whether they sponsored anything in the last two years and what tier they took. Turning up already knowing this changes the register of the conversation.
- Know your own numbers cold: audience size and composition, what a comparable sponsor paid, and what you cannot discount below.
- Do not send the deck in advance. If they read the tiers first, the meeting becomes a negotiation about your packages rather than a conversation about their goals.
- Book longer than you need and plan to talk for less than half of it. The first meeting is for listening.
- Decide in advance what you will not sell: naming rights you may want later, exclusivity across too broad a category, or anything that gives a sponsor a say over content.
Reading the answers
Reading the answers
Objective first, package second
Never present tiers until you know what they are trying to achieve. Standard packages are a convenience for you and an obstacle for them, and the ones that get signed are usually assembled after this conversation rather than before it.
Budget line beats budget size
Knowing the money comes from recruiting rather than brand tells you what to offer, who else to involve, and what the report needs to show. It is more actionable than a number with no home.
Watch for the missing approver
If nobody has mentioned legal, procurement or a brand team, they exist anyway. Ask directly. Deals agreed in a room and then discovered by a compliance function two weeks before the event are a common way to lose a sponsor you had already counted.
Enthusiasm is not commitment
The reliable signals are a named budget, a named approver, and a date. A warm meeting without all three is a lead, not a sponsor, and should be forecast accordingly.
Common mistakes
Common mistakes
- Pitching your assets rather than their outcome. Nobody buys a banner; they buy an audience they cannot otherwise reach.
- Granting exclusivity without defining the category, then discovering you have excluded half your remaining prospects.
- Agreeing to reporting you have no way of producing, particularly attribution to sales you cannot see.
- Leaving payment terms unexamined until the invoice, when your own suppliers need paying first.
- Treating the sponsorship as finished once the money arrives. The follow-up report and one honest note about what did not work are what make the second year easier than the first.
- Asking for a favour rather than proposing an exchange. Sponsors who are asked to be generous renew far less often than sponsors who got something they can point to.