[Board] Sponsorship program ideas

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Just thinking out loud here, but wondered why you guys thought.  I'm trying to 
think of some more ways we can get the higher level sponsors moving.  After 
talking with some potential sponsors they've made it clear that if there were 
a couple more "cash-like" incentives it makes it much easier to push through 
management.  Two examples in particular stand out relating to FOSS4G and one 
that didn't appear to be a winner.

1. Increased visibility of sponsor through FOSS4G.  Admittedly, we haven't 
done too well at promoting our _foundation_ sponsors at FOSS4G.  For example a 
few logos printed in a couple spots at the booth could be better :)  Ideally 
we'd have a big banner at the booth promoting them, or, what I'm wondering, is 
if we can get a more prominent placement in the conference venue.  I'm not 
thinking on every slide or keynote - but perhaps a prominent banner spot in 
the exhibit hall, etc.  If they wanted more FOSS4G promotion then they'd go 
for an event sponsorship position.  

Challenge: not stealing potential event sponsors.
Benefit: cheap for us to deliver.

2. FOSS4G conference passes.  Since the real cost to us can be low for 
providing a few free passes, this might be the easiest perk to offer.  We could 
provide 1 free pass for $10k sponsors, 2 for $20k, 3 passes for $50k+.  Costs 
per pass could literally be a few hundred dollars.  As an aside, in the end, 
naturally it's a good idea to try to ensure our sponsors are coming to FOSS4G 
to experience OSGeo, so at least a few of us could get them together to chat.  
Put on your customer relationship hat for a moment - keeping existing sponsors 
happy costs us a lot less ($ and effort) than bringing in new ones.

Challenge: again, avoiding overlap with foss4g sponsors.
Benefit: fairly cheap to deliver, real benefit to sponsor, encourages sponsors 
to engage by attending, bringing new colleagues.  Can help bring in sponsors 
that declined to sponsor the event.

3. Booth space appears to not be as enticing for some as I had thought.  I 
thought of using booth space as a promo since it's pretty cheap for us to 
deliver.  But some I've spoken to explain that to man and deliver a booth is 
too expensive for a small event like ours :)  Renting the booth space is a 
negligible cost compared to sending people, pulling together their materials, 
etc.

So, to sum up.  What do you think of using some of our FOSS4G resources (now 
or in the future) as a perk for enticing new sponsors?  I'm thinking of the 
$10k level and up only since it would only be a few hundred dollars required 
to deliver.  In some cases, like conference passes, there is always a 
likelihood that some sponsors might not even use them.

Anyway, that's all for my late night brainstorm. Hope you're well and I'm 
babbling too much :)
Tyler