This year NeighborWorks® Montana held their third-annual ROC Summit for the nearly 30 residents from 10 ROCs in the state. While preparing for the Summit and planning the agenda, we decided to approach the vendors that the ROCs use for sponsorships of the Summit.
We put together a list of the vendors who each of the ROCs use including their Property Managers, Accountants, Insurance Companies, Manufactured Home Dealers and Lenders. A month before the event, we sent email requests for sponsorships from the staff who work with that vendor.
We gave different sponsorship level options in each of the requests ranging from $250 to $1,000.
We had a really great response to our requests, with the majority of vendors quickly responding that they would like to help sponsor the event. NWMT received $4,000 in sponsorships total.
We received:
- three $250 sponsorships from Property Management companies (Real Estate Management Specialists, AllPro Flathead Property Management and the Dwelling Place,
- two $250 general sponsorships from the engineer firms we worth with regularly (Carver Engineering and Big Sky Civil & Environmental, Inc.)
- a $500 lunch sponsorship from JCCS the CPA firm that does all of the ROCs taxes and financial reviews,
- a $500 lunch sponsorship from Glacier Bank,
- a $500 donation from ROC USA for the t-shirts,
- a $500 general sponsorship from Haylor, Freyer & Koon and
- a $750 dinner sponsorship from Missoula Federal Credit Union
This was a really great return without having to do a lot of work. Using each company’s logos, we put together a sign to both showcase who supported the event and to show our gratitude. We also handed out promotional items such as pens, chip clips or other items in the bags the residents received at the training.
This was a great way to give the vendors the opportunity to give back to the communities that support their business and really help our organization provide a quality training that the residents enjoyed.