Blog Post

5 facts about our community events sponsorship program

Community cooking class, Charter Oak Health Center

1.  We Have a Community Events Sponsorship Program

For many years, the Connecticut Health Foundation has maintained a community sponsorship program run out of our communications department.  Perhaps you have seen our logo or heard us acknowledged at an event you have attended.  Through this program, we have sponsored everything from galas to conference scholarships to community forums.

While the program is not new, up until recently it was not widely publicized since the program was spread through word of mouth and because sponsorship requests tend to naturally make their way to foundations.

2.  The Goals of the Program are Twofold

We understand that events are an important fundraising mechanism for most non-profit organizations.  In addition to grantmaking, event sponsorship is another, albeit modest, way we can use our resources as a foundation to help organizations raise the funds they need to do good in our communities.  We strive to support events for which there is programmatic or thematic alignment with our priorities, particularly health equity, and an opportunity for participants to gain knowledge, resources, or inspiration that advances health equity in Connecticut.

We look for sponsorship opportunities that enable us to extend awareness of our organization and our health equity message to priority audiences — especially decision leaders, residents in communities of color affected by health inequities, and in parts of the state where we are not as well known.

3.  We Prioritize Awarding Sponsorships to Non-Grantees

Don’t get us wrong.  There are many instances where we have sponsored grantee events and we will continue to do so on a case-by-case basis.

The fact of the matter is that our sponsorship budget is much smaller than our grants budget and we use sponsorships to spread our impact around.  Sponsorships represent opportunities for us to support organizations doing meaningful work that might not be good candidates to receive grant funding (e.g., because they are direct service providers and we a systems change funder).  We also find that a sponsorship can be a good way for us to  develop a relationship with a new organization.  We take pride in providing 60%+ of our sponsorships to organizations headed up by leaders of color.

4.  Our Sponsorships are Small

Our sponsorships typically range from $200-$1,000.  Sometimes, this means our support comes in the form of placing an ad in an event program or buying tickets to the event.

We are open to a few slightly larger sponsorships each year that are exceptionally aligned, provide us with high visibility to a large priority audience, and where we can play a substantive role in helping to shape the program.

5.  Full Details about the Sponsorship Program are now Online

Please review the page before sending in a request, even if you have received a sponsorship from us in the past.

Tip:  If you send a request to our CEO, she will forward it to me, and I will ask you to review the guidelines.

We want to ensure that clear and consistent information is available, including what you need to do to request a sponsorship.  We have aimed to keep the request process manageable, but you will need to send us a few pieces of information that are not typically part of the standardized information that goes to prospective sponsors.

And on our part, we are holding ourselves accountable for a timely response to your request.

>>> Learn more or apply for a sponsorship

Please contact Pat Baker, pat@cthealth.org, cc: Suzanne Moody, suzanne@cthealth.org, for any questions related to our sponsorship program.