A few years ago, I was asked to find sponsors for a huge regional youth soccer tournament.
The organizers wanted around $20,000 in sponsorships to cover event expenses such as soccer balls and other sports equipment, water and fruit for all participants, signs and banners directing people to the right fields, and a bunch of other stuff.
Because most of the items they needed were going to come from retailers (who do not love to part with their cash, but are typically much more inclined to give away products for community events), we decided to seek in-kind rather than cash sponsorships.
I asked organizers for an itemized budget of items they were planning to pay for and I went to work, searching out companies that could donate those items in exchange for an ad in the official tournament book (which we printed in-house for free), a logo on a banner, and an opportunity to pass out coupons to the hundreds of kids and their parents who would be in town for the tournament.
One by one, we knocked it out.
BI LO gave us gift cards for all the food and water we needed; Signs Now donated signs and banners; Dick's Sporting Goods donated a lot of the equipment we were going to pay for, and FUEL pizza gave us a bazillion pizzas for the opening night reception.
Of course, most organizations want cash sponsorships. But sometimes, in-kind sponsorships are what they actually need.
