This is about hiring a sales person who will find sponsors for RubyAU who get paid % on the amount of money they bring.
The goal is to increase sponsorship while decreasing the committee time spent on it. Finding and closing sponsorship has been a very time consuming process and transition to yearly sponsorship was one of the ways to address the problem.
The idea came from Liam Esler who organises GCAP conf and has a lot of experience organising events. He found that having a dedicated sales person is the most sustainable model for non-profit organisations and it worked well for them so far. He himself performs that role.
I’ve reached out to him to get more info. Reply from Liam:
I can tell you how I do things - which is I take 15% from all sponsorship I bring in. I use my contacts and the contacts of the organisation I work for… so it has to be someone well-connected. They’re responsible for the whole process, from acquiring sponsorship to making sure the obligations to sponsors are being met properly – so they’d have to liaise with event coordinators etc.
I don’t think I’ve really seen a freelancer do it, only internal sales folk, so I don’t really have any resources to point you to online
But it’s basically a commission-based sales position, heh
If you put it in those terms it might help them to understand
I’d say just like any other role, put out a position description and treat it like a normal hiring process. Put it out there in the community and ask people to share it around (particularly to their friends in events). Happy to help vet candidates or whatever if that’s helpful!