How to write
a sponsorship
proposal
A sponsorship proposal runs to four to six pages and answers six questions: who you are, what your community looks like in numbers, what exactly you're offering, what the brand gets back, what it costs, and how you'll measure it. The most common mistake is spending four pages on yourself instead of on what the brand gets out of it.
A sponsorship proposal is not an About Us deck
The difference matters more than it sounds. An About Us deck explains who you are. A sponsorship proposal answers one specific question, the one the person reading it is actually asking: why put money here rather than somewhere else. They're two different documents, and the first one almost never gets a reply.
Keep the real reading conditions in mind. Your proposal gets opened on a phone, between two meetings, by someone who receives documents like it every week. You have two minutes, not twenty. Everything that matters has to be legible in the first two pages, and the rest is there to confirm.
The 6 sections of a proposal that gets a reply
The order matters as much as the content: each section answers the question the previous one just raised.
- Who you are, in three sentences : the name of the club or event, how long it's been running, and what actually happens there. No founding story, no manifesto.
- Your community in numbers : members, how often you meet, average turnout, age range, city. These are the numbers a brand uses to decide, so lead with them.
- What you're offering, concretely : not "a partnership", but "your product tested by 30 members over a month", or "your brand present at our 12 June event, 80 people expected".
- What the brand gets back : the content produced, the photos, the reviews, the physical presence, the access to members. This is the section they read first, whatever order you put it in.
- The budget : a number, or tiers. A proposal with no price asks the brand to do your work for you, and that work never gets done.
- How you'll measure it : what you commit to sending back afterwards, and by when. Photos, attendance, member feedback. This is what separates a request from a partnership.
If you only get two of them right, make it the second and the fourth: the numbers and what the brand gets. Those are the only two everyone reads.
Which numbers to give, and which to never invent
Give your member count, how often you meet, average turnout, the dominant age range, your city, and your social accounts if you have them. These are modest, checkable numbers, and that's exactly why they work.
Never give a "potential reach", a combined audience figure, or a number built by adding up every member's followers. The person reading compares numbers against paid campaigns all day: they spot a dressed-up figure immediately. And if they don't spot it now, they'll find out at the first activation, which is considerably worse.
A community of 25 people who genuinely show up is worth more, to the right brand, than an audience of 5,000 who never move. Own your size, it isn't the problem.
The 5 mistakes that get proposals ignored
These turn up in almost every proposal that goes unanswered.
- The same proposal sent to 40 brands : it shows in one line. A single sentence proving you know the brand does more than ten pages of layout.
- Four pages about you : your story matters to your members, not to the person weighing up a budget.
- No price : "we're open to any proposal" reads as "I don't know what I'm worth", and gets filed.
- A vague ask : "a partnership" means nothing. A product, a date, a number of people: those can be decided on.
- A 12 MB PDF : it won't open on a phone and it ends up an attachment nobody downloads. Stay under 5 MB, or send a link.
None of these are a matter of talent. They're internal-document habits applied to a commercial document.
The real shortcut: not having to send it cold
A good proposal improves your odds, but it doesn't solve the main problem, which is timing. You can write the best proposal in the world and land in the week the brand has already committed its budget. That's the number one reason for silence, and it has nothing to do with the quality of what you sent. Kithe is a community sponsorship platform: you add your community once, free, and your profile stays visible to the brands that match you.
- Free for organisers.
- Your profile does the job of the proposal: fill it in once, it stays current.
- Every approach goes through you: you say yes, no, or not now.
Rather than sending a proposal cold, let the brands find you.
Add your communityFrequently asked questions
How long should a sponsorship proposal be?
Four to six pages. Beyond that it doesn't get read through. Everything that really matters should fit in the first two pages, with the rest there to confirm what already convinced them.
Should I put a price in the proposal?
Yes, either a figure or tiers. A proposal without a price asks the brand to do your work for you, and that work never gets done. A number, even a rough one, gives them something to react to.
How much should I ask a sponsor for?
Start from what you're actually funding: the venue, the food, the kit, the giveaways. A budget tied to real costs can be defended. A round number from nowhere gets negotiated down immediately.
Do I need a different proposal for each brand?
Not a whole one. Keep the same structure and change two things: the concrete offer, and one sentence on why this brand specifically. That's twenty minutes of work and it changes the reply rate.
My club is small, is a proposal even worth writing?
Yes, and more often than people think. Brands aren't only buying volume, they're buying real engagement. Twenty-five members who turn up every time count for more than a passive audience ten times the size.
PDF, Google Slides, or a web page?
The format matters less than whether it opens on a phone in under three seconds. A link usually beats a heavy attachment, and it lets you fix a mistake after you've sent it.