Sponsorship and commercialisation in your project agenda

Project promoters can underestimate the importance of sponsorship, especially sponsorship coming from the private ‘business’ sector, since they may feel that it is only linked to business activities and thus cannot be part of language agendas. Hence, this kind of sponsorship is rather neglected as a means of fundraising for language-related projects, depriving them of resources which could help ensure financial sustainability and improve awareness amongst specific or broader target groups.

	Starwatch www.starwatch2006.de Using the theme of football in a competition that took place during 2006 World Cup, Starwatch succeeded in attracting attention from a series of sponsors. The project was supported by the German Ministry of Economy and Technology, which helped to bring in further sponsors and media interest. The Ministry helped the partners to get actual football stars to be interested in the project. Direct sponsors included the Ministry for Economy and Technology and KKH (German Health insurance). Additional Supporters included Giga.de (television), YAM and Mädchen (both are magazines), German Sport Youth and Duden (a publisher of language books).

Of course finding potential sponsors and persuading them to support a project is not the easiest of tasks! It is important for the project promoter to be well organised and bear in mind certain points before making a move:

Sponsorship is not a 100% charitable activity

When looking for potential sponsors, a project leader should bear in mind that sponsorship is a two-way process that should benefit both parties.

The majority of companies, institutes or individuals
willing to sponsor have their own agendas