Do You Have Sponsors???

[collme83]

Hi Ladies,
so i was talking with this Tri-Delt today at work (she's from Michigan) and she was telling me that her sorority gets sponsored durring the school year and that sponsor basically pays for everything that they do. None of the Greeks are sponsored at my University so i was wondering if it was a common thing? If so, who are your sponsors and how do you go about doing that?

pi phi love...
...colleen*

[breathesgelatin]

Do you mean business sponsors? I don't know exactly what you mean, but I don't think that we can really do that.

[sageofages]

What would be the difference between a "sponsor" and a Patron/Patroness, then?

Does having a sponsor mean you put the Coca-cola logo on all your Tshirts and on the signage in front of your house? (ok, silly mental image there) Is there an implied endorsement of the dr's office that makes a donation? "All XYX's use Dr Curearash when break outs occur" ads in the paper?

Whereas the Patron/Patroness is the kindly, well thought of but slightly in the way, alum who writes a fat check once a year to keep things moving along with the chapter . Is that a sponsor? (Ok, we put her face on the Tshirts instead of the Pepsi logo...spreading the endorsements around)

[Speechpath]

Never heard of this, not sure why someone would pay for everything???

[collme83]

well she told me that there's a committee in her sorority for finding sponsors and basically the sponsor (restaurants, banks, businesses) will pay for t-shirts or other things needed for functions and in return the sorority will advertise that company, or hand out merchandise durring the funtions...i don't know. She says it makes it way easy money wise and i had never heard of having sponsors?

pi phi love,
...colleen*

[angelic1]

for our philanthropy we have gotten businesses to donate money, food, or other items to raffle off and in return advertised for them on banners, programs, etc. during the philanthropy.. if this is part of what you mean.. i wouldnt call them sponsors though..

this is a good way to raise extra money and not spend extra costs on food or raffles..

but our dues pay for everything else.. any extra shirts that we want as well are paid for out of own pocket..

[dakareng]

Having sponsors to assist in the costs of your philanthropic or community service activities would be great since it allows you to donate more $$ to the charity but I would urge caution if you are seeking sponsors to pay for your social events or non-philanthropy t-shirts. Unless you try to get into creative accounting (which I don't recommend), sponsors cannot pay your operating expenses since it falls into the category of 'non-member' income. There is a limit to how much non-member income you can have before you have to pay taxes on it and are no longer non-profit.

On the other hand, my alumnae clubs have 'sponsored' chapters by assisting members in financial need, buying things for the house, etc. While you can't solicit that kind of donation (only house corp can solicit donations) directly, you can accept it (many chapters give 'wish lists' to local alumnae.