Schedule for funding any SC Symposium

This guide has originally been prepared by Jakob Berg Jespersen (jakob@iscb.org) - Finance Chair 2015 & 2016

The team for SCS may start to assemble, and new people will join/form a symposium committee. Before doing to much outreach, it is convenient to have rough plan of which sponsorships are logistically possible.

Should we have T-shirts, delegate packages, lunch, etc. sponsored? How many sponsors on each item? Are some sponsorships exclusive to a single sponsor?

do we have a logistic limitation to only take one/two sponsors for a 45-min sponsor workshop?

This is good to have in paper, eg. as a Sponsorship Package which could be a comprehensive and professionally looking pdf file.

Purpose is to be taken seriously, make communication to companies efficient, not two double-book an item with two sponsor when only room for one. It can serve as an advantage to have limited spots for certain items in order to provoke companies to think fast and buy a sponsorship early.

We usually do our best to maintain relationships with existing sponsors, so if one company has last year sponsored our SCS Awards we like to reach out to them first with the opportunity to do so again the following year. The recurring sponsors are very important, so keep it professional, be nice, and remind them that we are happy with our continuously ongoing synergy. You may be talking to the same person as the previous 5 symposium organizers, so chances could very well be that they have some prior knowledge to how things were done previously. Take time to make sure no misunderstandings happen.

We have tried to use mailmerge to send out multiple emails with the sponsor packages to many companies at once, this may be efficient, but give a very low return rate. Having the SCS network reach out to connections may be much more efficient, and establishing new connections through a more personalized outreach may be more efficient (personalized to the specific company in an email can make a difference).

It is okay to call companies, just be polite and efficient in your communication: Guidance_Document_for_calling_companies