External Sponsorship is great way to get some extra money for your club or society. You may also be able to secure sponsorship for non-monetary items such as food and drink for social events or tickets to attend conferences and events for your members.
Our student groups are sector leading in the amount of income they generate through sponsorship. Creating partnerships with external organisations can help you secure the funding or resources you need to be able to deliver all of your big ideas or activities.
This page outlines some of the important things to think about as well as the steps you need to take to arrange a contract and get it signed by the Students' Union.
Before you begin producing your sponsorship package, make sure to do the following:
1) Check if your society already has a sponsorship pack from previous years before making your own from scratch
It can be a lengthy process to make one from scratch so do make sure to check any google drive folders or links passed on to you from the former committee, particularly in the Handover document. If it’s not included in any handover documents, it might still be worth contacting members of the former committee to ask.
If you are a new society, you can reach out to the SU Societies team for guidance and advice on a draft or even ask friends from other society committees if they would be happy to share a template of their society’s sponsorship pack.
2) Consider expanding your list of potential sponsors
Many societies within the LSESU have a rich legacy of sponsorship, with the list of sponsors remaining similar year on year. However, if you are hoping to put together a more expansive events programme with a large event such as a ball, dinner or large networking event, it may be worth expanding your list of potential sponsors.
Securing new sponsors beyond companies who have already sponsored the society in the past is a major achievement for any committee as it often involves more extensive preparation and pitching.
3) Set an internal deadline within your committee to get your sponsorship package created/updated and sent out – the earlier the better!
Some organisations might include a deadline for university sponsors to submit sponsorship applications on their website, but if you are still in the process of preparing your sponsorship package it may be worth emailing them in advance to ask for a deadline by which they would need to hear from university societies requesting sponsorship.
This is because many corporate firms especially will have internal deadlines around August and early July to finalise who they will sponsor in the upcoming year, which society leaders sometimes miss as it is only the first few weeks of the role.
Having a professional looking offer and visual takeaway for the sponsor can sometimes be the difference between closing a pitch or losing the company so get prepared. There is a rough guideline below of what to include in your pack:
For any committee members who are leading on securing sponsorship we have created a helpful training module on how to successfully negotiate your sponsorship.
To discuss any sponsorship questions please contact the Team managers by emailing su.activities@lse.ac.uk
If a group submits a contract for a fossil fuel or armament company, the Union will not sign the contract.
Sometimes this is ok, but to ensure you are not rejected after lots of negotiation and work, ask the company for a copy of the template contract. Then get in contact with one of the team managers with a copy of their contract, to check the template before moving forward.
If a company has agreed to sponsors you, you must then draw up the agreement between yourselves (the club/society) and your sponsors. This agreement will consist of everything that the organisation is giving you and what you are promising the organisation in return.
We have created a contract template that all societies should be using for contracts.
(Please note that there are several points in there, particularly around data protection, marketing and promoting events and booking rooms on campus that should not be removed or amended. If you remove or amend these so that their purpose is no longer clear within the contract, you will be asked to resubmit the contract with the original phrases in.)
Please get the organisation to sign the contract, but do not sign it yourself. The Students' Union will sign all contracts on your behalf – no matter how big or small the amount is or whether the contract is with a foreign organisation. Contracts signed by the sponsor and someone that isn’t from the Students’ Union will not be valid and we will not be able to issue an invoice for you to receive and sponsorship into your account.
Please submit your contrat for review using the contract submission form.
Submit Your Sponsorship Contract Here
If your sponsor or your committee have any special requires that go along side the contract, please add them to the notes and requests sections of the form.
We aim to review contracts twice per week (During term time it may be less frequent due to the high volume of contracts submitted by student groups).If there is an issue with your contract the staff team will contact with actions you need to do to rectify the issue. If the contract is approved, you will recieve an approval email and a copy of the signed contract. It is then your responsibility to share this with your sponsor.
Once your contract is approved, the Union Finance Team will raise an invoice and send it to your sponsor with a 30 day period for payment.
To check if a sponsors has paid, please check your student group account via the expense365 or your treasurer. If your sponsorship money hasn't come through after the 30 day payment period, the LSESU Finance Team will send out a standard email to chase unpaid invoices once per term, other than this it is your Society's responsibility to chase your sponsors for payments.
If at the end of June we still haven't received payment from your sponsor, we will write off any unpaid invoices.
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