[Yapc-na-organizers] Link to YAPC 2007 sponsorship document

G. Wade Johnson gwadej at anomaly.org
Fri Mar 23 21:22:10 PDT 2007


On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:29:18 -0400
"Richard Dice" <rdice at pobox.com> wrote:

> Some feedback so far -
> 
> First of all, really good stuff that you're on top of this!

Thanks....except I feel it has taken too long to get to this point.

> 
> Different levels of sponsorship...
> 
>    - often have different perks associated with them beyond just being
>    called something different... see if you can provide extra-special
> benefits to higher levels of sponsors (e.g t-shirt placement starts
> at Gold)

I was hoping for some input from the list on things like this. If I
read the Chicago sponsorship doc correctly, it did not look like they
had shown any differences.

I'm really open to suggestions here. I like the idea of different
placement based on level, I just wasn't comfortable with where the
cutoffs should be. Anyone else?

>    - could be above just $3000 - maybe you could make a $7500
> "Foundation Sponsor" level?  (I had one $10k sponsorship and another
> $6k sponsorship - they got some extra-special treatment.)

I was going on the numbers from last years conference. Despite a $5000
level, the max donated seemed to be $2500 (except for one group that
paid for Damian to come in). So, it seemed to me that other levels
might not be very useful. Obviously, you had different experience.

We had also thought that maybe having the next level at $3000 rather
than $5000 might entice someone to move up from the $2500 level.

Anybody else have experience and/or opinions that we could use as a
guide?

> Re: staff a table at the job fair -- for a $100 Bronze sponsorship?
> I think this is a waaay too low a price for a job fair table.  I
> think it could be good planning to say that Platinum (and above)
> sponsors get a free table, but I'd think tables themselves could go
> for $1k.  (Anyone here an OSCON organizer?  What do you guys charge
> there?)

Any other input? Anyone from last year?

> Re: May 18th deadline - it's good to include something like this on
> the sheet, but in a practical sense you could find yourself receiving
> (or even soliciting) sponsorships right up to the day before the
> event.  Which might make it tougher to put some of these sponsors
> into the program but that's okay as long as they know about it.

I plan to keep checking. I guess we didn't make it explicit enough, but
the deadline is for getting placement on the shirts and programs.
Obviously, we can't get a company on the shirt if they donate the day
before we start.<shrug/>

> Re: contact email address -- you've got the yapchouston.org domain...
> maybe you could set yourself up an @yapchouston.org email address to
> go along with this?

I'll have to check with the owner of the domain. Hey Will, any thoughts?

> Sometimes, people want to sponsor an _aspect_ of the conference.  E.g.
> Wednesday lunch, the afternoon food breaks, the 1 evening banquet,
> snacks at the arrival-night pub outing, the t-shirt.  If you prepare
> a list of specific items with specific costs then that could make it
> easier to sell those items, not to mention that they can be big
> ticket items.  (For instance, it could be easier to find someone to
> pay for t-shirts for $3000 than to find a Platinum sponsor.)

What I heard from Josh was that this had turned into a hassle on their
original sponsorship document. My plan had been to mention these things
as possibilities when talking with individual companies. If they wanted
to sponsor something in particular, we could work it out separately.

This also gives me the opportunity to play gatekeeper so that we don't
get several people wanting to pay for one item.

> There is no official mandate for YAPC to "turn a profit."  Every YAPC
> organizer for the past several years (going back to 2003 from what
> I've seen, maybe earlier) has managed to come out comfortably in the
> black, though, by basically being really conservative (cautious,
> paranoid, whatever) in their budget (revenue _and_ expense)
> projections.  This has effectively made YAPC the key fundraising
> effect of TPF every year.  But you guys are totally allowed /
> empowered to allocate your budget to your conference first.  Do what
> you gotta to to make sure that your attendees having a fantastic time.

We'll do our best.

Thanks for the feedback.

G. Wade


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