Corporate Sponsorships: How to Find, Grow and Maintain Community Partners

Corporate partnerships are a crucial source of resources for Habitat for Humanity affiliates. These relationships provide financial support, in-kind donations, and volunteer labor that help fulfill the mission of providing affordable homeownership. 

For affiliates looking to enhance their corporate fundraising programs, understanding how to find new sponsors, structure sponsorship packages, and maintain long-term relationships is essential. But, starting from scratch in this process can be intimidating.  

So, rather than recreate the wheel, we’ve developed this guide that draws on insights from affiliates across the country to offer practical strategies, tactics and tools for success.

Finding New Corporate Sponsors

One of the most important parts of creating a robust corporate partnership program is developing a stable pipeline of new community relationships with local corporations.  

There are many different opportunities in most communities. And, the good news is that leveraging Habitat for Humanity’s recognized brand gives your affiliate a leg-up when it comes to cold outreach and your presence at local business events.

Based on discussions with affiliates, here are the most common and successful opportunities for making new connections.

Attending Trade Association and Chamber of Commerce Events

One of the most effective ways to find new corporate sponsors is through industry-specific networking events and associations. 

Finding relevant builder and trade associations, realtor associations, and community foundation events are fertile grounds for making new connections. 

Professional groups, such as Women in Construction, also offer networking opportunities. Additionally, the Chamber of Commerce plays a significant role in connecting with potential sponsors.

So, put on your Habitat logo gear and start to research the associations in your area.  Get out there and start making connections.

Check out this free industry trade association directory to find local associations in your area.

Looking for your local chamber of commerce? Here’s a directory to get more details.

Inviting Local Corporations to Your Events

Most Habitat for Humanity affiliates put on a number of events throughout the year to raise money.  But, these events are more than just fundraisers. They are opportunities to do cold outreach to local companies. 

The most common events affiliates reported having success with are galas, golf tournaments, home dedications, blitz builds and brewery gatherings. 

Invitations to Habitat for Humanity events, whether through cold or warm outreach, provide opportunities to showcase the organization’s work and engage potential sponsors.

We also recognize that events take a lot of time, resources and staff energy to put on.  But, the most important part of any event is actually the follow-up. 

Before you put on the event, make sure you have a strong follow-up strategy outlined so that your team solidifies relationships with new attendees.  Consider mapping out a 3-5 month plan for post-event follow-up when it comes to new corporate partnerships.

Your Corporate Partnership Webpage is Key

Many corporate partners are going to want to understand the benefits, process and opportunities of partnership with your affiliate before they engage in conversations. This is why your website is so important. Often it is the first step in the partnership process.

It can be easy to underestimate the value and importance that our website plays in fostering new corporate relationships.

A successful landing page on your site should outline:

• What partnership looks like with Habitat.
• The benefits that corporate partners get.
• The various ways that corporations can partner with Habitat.
• A clear call to action to contact your affiliate to speak with a human.

Community Connect has put together an example corporate sponsorship landing page for your website.

We encourage you to copy/paste this content into your website, or use it as a starting point when you’re re-writing your content.

Structuring Corporate Sponsorship Packages

Based on conversations with affiliates, there are a lot of different types of opportunities that they offer to corporate partners. Elevate this early in conversations with prospective partners so that they know about the different ways they can partner.

Types of Sponsorships

Most Habitat for Humanity affiliates reported offering various types of sponsorships to suit different corporate needs:

• Event Sponsorships: Corporations can sponsor specific events, such as fundraising galas or golf events, etc.
• Community Build Days: Build days can be a good entry point for new relationships since they require less financial commitment.
• Gifts-in-Kind (GIK) Materials and Services: Companies can donate building materials, tools, or professional services.
• New Construction Sponsorships: Sponsors can fund new home builds, providing financial support or labor.
• Critical Home Repair Sponsorships: These projects offer instant gratification for sponsors who can see immediate results from their contributions and often get to work side-by-side with the homeowner, which creates a meaningful experience for corporate volunteers.

Components of a Sponsorship Package

Creating a compelling sponsorship package involves clearly defining the monetary value and potential in-kind contributions. 

Early communication of these details sets clear expectations and helps build trust as sponsorship conversations progress. Although it is recommended that you have standard packages to ensure clear expectations around goals, affiliates do report customizing packages based on the sponsor’s needs and contributions, ensuring a mutually beneficial relationship.

Common Benefits for Corporate Sponsorships

Corporate sponsors look for tangible benefits from their partnerships. But, most importantly remember that each corporate partner may have different motivations.

Common motivations may include:

• Elevating their brand
• Community investment and philanthropy
• Employee engagement

To help deliver value to partners based on these motivations, the most common sponsorship benefits include:

• Social Media Mentions: Highlighting sponsors on social media platforms.
• Inclusion in Newsletters: Featuring sponsors in regular newsletters.
• Logo Placement on Website: Displaying sponsor logos on the affiliate’s website.
• Dedicated Press Releases: Issuing press releases to announce partnerships.
• Participation in Key Events: Inviting sponsors to homebuyer key presentations and groundbreaking ceremonies.
• Exclusive Events: Offering unique experiences like CEO lunch and learns or exclusive build days.
• Commemorative Items: Providing SWAG (stuff we all get) to sponsors as a token of appreciation.

Maintaining Long-Term Relationships with Corporate Sponsors

Corporate partnerships should be seen as long-term investments. And, when managed well, they can be a stable and important source of revenue for affiliates. 

The affiliates that have had the most success with their corporate development program, all mentioned that there are four key parts to building a long-term relationship.

Engagement and Communication

As with any donor, consistent and personal communication is key to maintaining these relationships. 

Continuing to participate in communities where you originally found the sponsor (like Chamber of Commerce events) allows for organic touchpoints and ongoing relationship building. 

Several affiliates reported that sending personalized thank you notes from homeowners on Habitat stationery adds a heartfelt touch that sponsors appreciate.

Elevate Sponsor Impact Storytelling

Continual follow-up and storytelling about the impact of their contributions keep sponsors engaged and invested. 

Many affiliates will provide impact reports that highlight their contributions and reinforce the value of the partnership. 

Likewise, you want to share the impact that your sponsors have had on your mission with the rest of your community.  When sponsors come out for a build day, or participate in an event, elevate that in your social media, email and website marketing.

We also recommend that you provide resources to your sponsors so that when they participate in a build day or event, they can elevate their partnership with you. After all, one of the reasons that they partner with Habitat in the first place is to elevate their brand and community investment.

We also encourage the corporate partners to submit images to your affiliate so that you can post their content and tag them.

This coordinated social media effort will help reach more people and ensure that your corporate partners are elevated for their generosity.

Turning Partners into Advocates

If you are able to truly engage with your corporate partners, they will eventually become major advocates for the work you do. Once they utilize their platform to elevate your work, then you know you are doing a great job.

Once you have close ties with a corporation, utilize this impact story to build relationships with other corporations. You can also use your relationships with your existing corporate partners to get introductions with other like-minded companies in your area.

The Right Tools for the Job

Now that you have a clear strategic approach to developing your corporate partnership program, it’s time to get the right tools for the job.

Download Community Connect’s Corporate Partnership marketing toolkit to start building more partnerships. This toolkit includes:

1. Customizable Corporate Partnerships brochure – a four-page brochure to use in conversations with prospective corporate partners. It elevates the benefits of partnerships, the available sponsorship opportunities and the sponsorship packages available to them.
2. Corporate Pre-Event One-pager – prepare your corporate partner for their next build day or event participation with this one pager. It provides tools and instructions for how they can get the most out of the experience and elevate their partnership with your affiliate.
3. Copy and Paste Corporate Partnership Landing Page – use the content and page design that we already created for your website to increase the number of corporate partners leads you get.

Looking to invite local companies to your next gala, golf tournament, brewery event, fun run or home dedications?

Check out Community Connect’s other event marketing toolkits. They include:

1. Postcard invitations
2. Customizable Sponsorship one-pagers
3. Event Logo options
4. Website graphics
5. Email graphics
6. Customizable social media graphics and copy/paste social media content
7. And more…