6 Tips for Getting Sponsorship for a Hackathon
Here are a couple of tips and tricks that every hackathon organizer should keep in mind in regards to sponsorship.
Make realistic goals
Every hackathon should have a different amount of money they need to raise. How many people are attending your event? How much swag are you giving each hacker? How will you address travel reimbursement, if any? Discuss with your team and make a realistic plan for your budget based on these answers.
A helpful tip is making a list of needs and wants. We’ve found that the biggest things we have to pay for are the venue, internet, furniture, food, and our buses, which are necessities to even have our event be possible.
Last year, we made a “bare minimum” budget that we knew we needed to hit, then wrote a list in the order of priority of additional things we would fund. Additional things involved decorations, swag like water bottles, customizable lanyards, and more. The possibilities are endless!
Look for leads internally
Every hackathon organizer always struggles to find new leads for hackathons. However, the best place to start looking is inside your own team! Ask your other hackathon organizers who they know, and make a spreadsheet of information based off of their possible contacts. Draft an email with instructions on how to reach out to your other organizers, and see who they know! You’ll be surprised with how little you have to look to find amazing companies!
Maintain lasting relationships with your companies
Of course, staying in constant communication with all your companies up until the event is a challenge, but don’t forget to keep in contact after the event too! Always send a thank-you email, because without the sponsors nothing would be possible, and be sure to recognize them during closing ceremonies. And don’t forget about those companies in the upcoming years! Give returning companies simple benefits (closer tables to hackers) for sticking with you throughout the years. The relationships you’ll form with company representatives will go a long way!
Onboard new sponsorship members for your team
Something that is commonly forgotten is to make sure you always have someone that will be able to take over when seniors may graduate or people may leave the team. There should always be a couple of people that are fully onboarded the year before, who know how to run sponsorship and what companies know what, in order to transition to the upcoming years. This will make maintaining long term relationships with the companies so much easier and more impactful.
Get creative about your hackathon sponsorship ideas
If your company doesn’t want to pay cash upright, ask them to sponsor a specific part of a hackathon! Maybe a dinner, the wifi, all the toiletries, or maybe a special midnight snack! It’ll help cut down on your expenses and get their name out there.
Get your university on your side
If you haven’t already, form important connections with your Engineering/Computer Science departments at your school to vouch for you. Hackathons are a thing we all hold dear and love, but with a school’s departments to support you, it makes the job a whole lot easier. Build a relationship of trust with different parts of your school so that future events will be easier to run.
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Written by Jessica Jiang, Head of Sponsorship @ BoilerMake
