How to Create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan (+ Templates)
Congratulations! You've just landed an incredible sponsorship opportunity.
But before you can start working on your sponsorship deliverables, it's important to formalize your sponsorship agreement.
Sponsorship agreements are more than just mere paperwork. They outline the expectations and responsibilities of both parties to keep everyone on the same page.
And here’s why that matters: poor contract management leads to real losses. According to the World Commerce & Contracting Association (WorldCC), businesses lose an average of 9.2% of annual revenue due to contract mismanagement.
So, crafting a well-structured sponsorship agreement is a smart business move, not just some formality. But it’s easier said than done. You’ll need to think through everything from deliverables and payment terms to cancellation clauses and governing law. Even one small oversight could cause major issues down the line.
In this article, we’ll discuss what sponsorship agreements are, the various types and how to write sponsorship contracts from scratch.
We've also rounded up 11 brilliant sponsorship agreement templates covering a range of sponsorship scenarios, including event sponsorships, sports partnerships, influencer collaborations, corporate sponsorships and non-profit agreements.
A sponsorship agreement is a legally binding document between you and the sponsor outlining the terms and conditions of a partnership.
This agreement includes the sponsorship duration, the financial or in-kind support provided by the sponsor, the benefits or exposure you’ll offer in return and the conditions for terminating the contract.
These business documents are invaluable as they not only protect both parties from potential disputes but also provide a solid foundation for a successful, mutually beneficial partnership. You can share them as a standalone document or include them as an appendix in your sponsorship proposal template.
Sponsorship agreements can take various forms, with each type offering unique benefits and opportunities for both parties involved. To initiate these partnerships, many organizers start with a well-crafted sponsorship request letter that outlines the opportunity and benefits for potential sponsors.
Here are some of the most common types of sponsorship agreements:
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Pro Tip: Sports sponsorships generally offer high visibility due to the popularity of sports and athletes and can range from local sponsorships to multi-million dollar deals with professional leagues and tournaments. Use our sports sponsorship deck templates to pitch potential clients and attract lucrative sports deals.
A sponsorship agreement is important for setting clear expectations, protecting the interests of both parties and building successful partnerships.
But according to recent research, almost 90% of business users find contracts difficult or even impossible to understand. And since about a quarter of the workforce deals with contracts in some way, that’s a problem worth solving.
Here’s a quick guide to walk you through the essential steps on how to write a sponsorship contract:
Start your agreement by clearly stating the names, addresses and contact information of all parties involved in the sponsorship agreement. This information is important for legal identification if things go wrong and to ensure everyone knows who to contact for different aspects of the sponsorship. It's extremely important when dealing with major brands or corporate sponsorship.
Pro Tip: Make the most of our dynamic fields feature while writing this section to save time and reduce the risk of errors. Set up dynamic fields for party names, addresses and contact information to quickly customize multiple agreements without manually editing each document.In this section, describe the nature of your sponsorship contract— is it for a one-off event or a part of a long-term collaboration?
Also, outline the objectives both parties aim to achieve through the partnership. These could include increasing brand awareness, reaching new audiences, supporting a cause or driving sales.
Next, specify the rights and obligations of each party. You probably mentioned these in detail in your sponsorship package. Here, you’ll have to summarize the gist of it.
For example, a sponsor could be responsible for providing financial or in-kind support. In exchange, they’d get brand visibility and exclusive event access.
Pro Tip: Be as thorough as possible when writing this section, as it forms the core of your agreement. Include specific details like the amount of financial support, the number and frequency of social media posts or the logo size and placement for the particular sponsorship level they’ve chosen. The more precise you are, the less room there is for misinterpretation or disputes later on.Now, it's time to break down the terms of your agreement. These will differ depending on the type of sponsorship agreement being signed:
This section is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and ensure accurate fulfillment of the sponsorship obligations.
Detail the duration of your sponsorship contract, including specific start and end dates, and mention if the contract has provisions for automatic renewal or options for extension.
Specify conditions under which either party can end the agreement. This section should cover the notice period required and potential penalties for early termination. If you ever need to end a deal professionally, here’s a helpful guide on how to write a contract termination letter.
Pro Tip: If you’re not an expert on writing contracts, it can be very difficult to get your point across to the other party. Even though we suggest seeking expert help, it’s still a good idea to use AI to write first drafts. If you’re designing your sponsorship agreements using Visme, try out our AI text generator. Simply type in a detailed prompt specifying your tone, target audience and objectives and let AI do all the heavy lifting.Highlight how logos, trademarks and other brand assets can be used under the sponsorship contract. This protects both parties' intellectual property rights and ensures proper brand representation throughout the sponsorship.
Include clauses that outline each party's liability and indemnification responsibilities to protect both parties from potential claims or losses.
In this section, outline the process for resolving disputes that may arise during the sponsorship. The resolution could be through mediation, arbitration or even legal proceedings, but it's important to be thorough to prevent minor disagreements from escalating into major conflicts.
This section covers additional details that don't fit neatly into other categories.
Here are some clauses to consider:
In their article about common issues in sponsorship, Eric and Vito highlighted that parties often don’t spend enough time defining and describing the parameters of any exclusivity that applies to the relationship.
“The boundaries of the exclusivity should be described in as much detail as possible in the agreement. Is the exclusivity limited by territory or worldwide? If the exclusivity is tied to specific products or lines of business, is the sponsored team, event, etc. allowed to offer or promote its own competing products or business directly as long as it doesn’t enter into an agreement with a competitive third party to do so?” - Eric Pennessi & Vito Petretti”
Lastly, provide ample space for both parties to sign and date the agreement. This formalizes the contract and makes it legally binding, ensuring both parties have read and agreed to the contract's terms and are committed to fulfilling their obligations.
In his video, Chris Baylis from the Sponsorship Collective offers a final piece of advice that’s worth keeping in mind as you wrap up your agreement:
“So broadly speaking, your contract—your sponsorship agreement—should include, first of all, everything your lawyer thinks it should include, which is why you must consult them before you create a contract.
Now talk to your lawyer about creating a template that you can use again and again, and which parts of the contract you should change and update so that it's applicable to each new sponsor. If saving money is your goal, and you don't want to have to engage a lawyer every time and create a new contract, there may be a way around that. But not including a lawyer in this process is definitely not the way to save money in your sponsorship program.”
Creating a sponsorship contract from scratch can be daunting, especially if you’re not an expert on writing contracts or don’t have any design expertise.
You'll find yourself grappling with decisions about page layout, font choices and color schemes. Not to mention the challenge of writing and organizing the content into sections.
Sidestep all that hassle and get started with Visme’s professionally designed sponsorship agreement templates:
In this sponsorship agreement template, the sponsor is covering the cost of the training program for one of their employees to help expand her tech skills. The sponsorship agreement contract covers all relevant sections like reporting requirements, confidentiality, termination and governing law. It even has a dedicated page for signatures to formalize the deal.
The clean design is brought to life with a blue background color, easily readable fonts and ample whitespace.
Make sure that the content of this training sponsorship agreement is accurate by using our design collaboration and workflow features. You can tag collaborators, share comments and feedback and resolve issues in real-time, reducing the time to design contracts.
This event sponsorship agreement template showcases an agreement between a university’s student body organization and a photography equipment retailer. It highlights the responsibilities of both parties, breaks down payment terms and in-kind contributions and the situations under which the contract will be considered void. This level of detail is essential for any well-executed event marketing strategy.
The event sponsorship agreement contract features a professional layout, colorful border and relevant vector icons at the bottom to guide readers to the next page.
This conference sponsorship contract template is perfect for anyone looking to seal the deal with their sponsors. It includes important sections of a sponsorship contract like sponsorship deliverables, terms and conditions, dispute resolution and liability and indemnification.
Replace the placeholder text of the simple sponsorship agreement template to make it your own. But if you want to personalize the document, try uploading your brand colors, icons and logos to bring everything together.
The quickest way to do this is by using our Brand Wizard tool. Simply enter your web URL and let AI automatically pull your logos, colors and icons and add them to your brand kit.
Whether you’re an aspiring or professional online gamer, this YouTube sponsorship contract is key to closing brand deals. The template's visual elements—colors, fonts, bullets, and pre-designed sections—exude professionalism, making it an excellent choice for anyone looking to impress their sponsors.
This boxing sponsorship contract features a sleek design with professionally designed sections for sponsorship details, obligations, benefits and terms.
The white spaces and easy-to-read fonts are strategically used to enhance the clarity of this template, making it a perfect pick for formalizing sponsorships in the sports industry.
This general sponsorship contract stands out as one of the best sponsorship contract examples on our list. It features a brilliant cover page with a high-resolution photo in the background, well-structured sections and an exciting page design.
It covers all essential clauses needed in a sponsorship contract agreement. But if you want to add or remove a section, Visme’s intuitive editing tools make it a breeze.
This podcast sponsorship contract template features a clean, professional design with a minimalist black-and-white color scheme. The cover page includes a logo, title and space for party details.
The content of this podcast sponsorship agreement is well-structured, covering key sections such as terms of sponsorship, sponsor benefits, termination conditions and financial details.
Share and publish your podcast agreement directly with your sponsors using a link or QR code. This will allow you to track analytics like total views, completion rate and average time spent to measure your project's effectiveness.
This corporate sponsorship contract template features a sleek, modern design, combining a black-and-white color scheme with vibrant headings.
I like how this sponsorship agreement PDF comes with clearly defined sections for sponsor rights and responsibilities, financial terms, confidentiality and governing law, ensuring that the rights of both parties are protected. It also uses numbered clauses for easy navigation.
This sponsorship contract agreement between a tech company and a non-profit organization covers all elements like legal rights and responsibilities, term and termination clauses and finances. It’s a straightforward pick for anyone looking to formalize their deal with their sponsors.
The dark blue background, green accents for headings and subheadings and numbered sections and clauses increase the readability of this template.
This athlete sponsorship contract template is specifically designed for agreements between sports equipment companies and professional athletes. It covers key aspects of the sponsorship agreement, making it an ideal choice for athletes and their sponsors who want to ensure clear expectations and responsibilities between both parties.
The athlete sponsorship contract has a unique page border, colorful headings and numbered sections for easy reference. It’s great for both legal review and the athletes themselves.
This influencer sponsorship contract between a fashion company and an influencer ticks all the boxes required in any well-rounded sponsorship contract. It covers all important clauses to protect the rights of both parties, including financial compensation, content creation requirements and brand promotion guidelines.
The business contract template also features a modern page layout with a gradient purple border, stylized star icon, relevant background images and easily readable fonts.
Pro Tip: If you can’t find a sponsorship agreement template that matches your design aesthetic, try Visme’s AI document generator. Enter a detailed prompt with what you’re looking for, choose a style and let AI run its magic. You can then preview, regenerate or edit your AI-generated document until you have something you love.
Use a sponsorship agreement whenever you enter into a sponsorship relationship. The document formalizes the terms between sponsor and beneficiary, ensures they understand their roles, obligations and benefits and protects their interests.
The four main types of sponsorships are:
A sponsored agreement is a binding contract between the sponsor and the beneficiary that outlines the terms of their partnership, including financial support, obligations and benefits for both parties.
In exchange for their financial or in-kind support for the beneficiary, sponsors typically receive brand exposure, such as exclusive logo placement, mentions in promotional materials and social media shoutouts. In other cases, they can even receive marketing rights, product placement opportunities and VIP event access.
A sponsorship contract is essential for several reasons. It clarifies expectations, protects both parties’ interests, ensures compliance and prevents potential disputes.
Yes, sponsorship agreements are legally binding contracts as long as they outline the rights and obligations of all parties involved and are undersigned by authorized representatives of each party.
Creating a solid sponsorship agreement sets the foundation for a win-win partnership. It clarifies expectations, protects both parties' interests and sets the stage for future collaborations.
But before you reach an agreement, you need captivating content to get sponsors on board.
With Visme's contract maker, you can easily create all your sponsorship documents and make sure they look on-brand, professional and engaging.
Whether you’re making sponsorship decks, proposals, packages, letters or sponsorship agreements, you can find the perfect template in our vast template library.
Simply choose the design you love, customize it with your content, upload your design elements and create a professional-looking sponsorship document in minutes. The best part is that you don’t need professional design skills to use our intuitive drag-and-drop editor and built-in design assets.
Ready to use Visme for sales and sponsorship agreements? Sign up for a free account and get started right away.
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