Planning for Expedition Amazonas took a lot of years. Nathe was a mad man with maps, routes, logistics, contacts and overall feasibility. I managed to squeeze myself in there somewhere and took hold of, among other tasks, sponsorship. We knew we were looking at an epic. The task was to convince others that it would be worthwhile backing us and coming on board. Much easier said than done. However, with enough common sense, blind passion and self belief can really help out. I started off with the perhaps deluded and naive assumption that folks would be knocking down our door to sponsor us. Even after those rejection emails, or worse, no replies started to mount up I still felt we were on to something. As we flew off to Peru we had 17 industry leading sponsors on board. Not bad for a first major expedition from a few unknowns I reckon. How did we go about it?

Above is the final draft of our sponsorship proposal which was emailed as a PDF to potential sponsors (click to enlarge). 1 page. Just 1 page. Isn't that a bit short? We started with a 30 page brochure full of graphs, photos, kit lists, breakdowns etc. It never even saw the light of day! 30 pages? What were we thinking! Who was going to read that? Answer? No-one! Potential sponsors do not care about your plans to save the world, end poverty or track climate change by pulling a little box behind you on the ice. They care about three simple words - RETURN ON INVESTMENT. What does an insurance company care about how greenhouse gases could affect the marine life of the Arctic Ocean (despite the marketing blurb)? Sure, your aims must align with their core beliefs in some way. Royal Dutch Shell is unlikely to come on board with your expedition in Alaska to promote an end to off-shore drilling are they? Call me a cynic if you like (I prefer realist), but ROI is key.

If you cannot grab a marketing managers attention in the first paragraph of your proposal then you have lost them. Even after you have piqued their interest you won't hold them very long. Get their attention, show them potential (and highly likely) returns and get out. If they want more information they will ask for it. If not, your proposal is probably in the bin. You can pull out the facts and figures when called for. If you are asking for financial backing you'd better have them, just like with any business plan. Not many companies hand over cold hard cash because they are such lovely people. They may well be, but, they have a business to run. They want to see those three words again - return on investment. The above proposal is not perfect, but it did have at least a few things going for it. It was short, it was to the point and did not take up anyone's time. This tended to delay that short journey to the trash bin just enough.

There are so many other elements involved in the sponsorship game (ROI is just one of them). Elements that after so many years I have a pretty firm grasp of. I am not spot on with sponsorship or propose to be some sort of guru, but I have learnt a few things here and there.

If you have any questions on getting sponsorship, email me and I would be happy to help out. NB. Try not to email questions like - "How do I get sponsorship?". Make it specific. Something that cannot be answered with a quick Google search.