
A sponsorship deck is a presentation used to pitch a partnership or funding opportunity to potential sponsors. It outlines the value of your organization, the benefits to the sponsor, and how the partnership will work.
Sounds simple, but in reality, it’s your first (and sometimes only) chance to make an impression.
So, how do you craft a sponsorship deck that’s persuasive enough to open the dialogue for partnership and brilliant enough to outshine your competition?
We’ve compiled a guide on how to write an impressive sponsorship deck, what to include to impress potential partners and best practices from top brands to learn how they won over new sponsors and partners.
If you're ready to create your deck right away, start with one of our free sponsorship deck templates now.
A sponsorship deck is a presentation that provides a brand overview and showcases the benefits for potential partners in exchange for resources or financial support. It also details the remarkable ways the brand can leverage its assets. It can also be called a sponsorship presentation, sponsorship pitch deck or sponsorship proposal.
Here’s an example of a real-life sponsorship deck: the Stouffville Event Sponsorship Opportunities 2024 deck.
From “Stouffville Event Sponsorship Opportunities"Source
A sponsorship deck and sponsorship package are often used interchangeably. However, they both serve two different purposes and should be used wisely when interacting with a potential sponsor.
It's the marketing equivalent of a pitch deck. Its primary purpose is to persuade the sponsor to see the value of the partnership, whether long or short-term.
Conversely, a sponsorship package is a detailed document that outlines the specifics of the sponsorship deal once the partner has agreed to move forward with the sponsorship. It includes terms and conditions, pricing, benefits and contractual agreements.
Simply put, it's a marketing tool to attract a sponsorship and a sponsorship package captures the legal and financial aspects of that partnership.
When it comes to sponsorship decks, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. In fact, there are different types of sponsorship decks you can use depending on your industry or sponsorship goals.
By understanding what kind of sponsorship you should be pursuing, you can proficiently tailor your deck to effectively communicate your requirements to a potential sponsor.
Here are four main types of sponsorship decks you can use.
Type of Deck | Best For |
Event Sponsorship | In-person or virtual event backers |
Content/Brand | Influencer or creator collaborations |
Sports Sponsorship | Teams, athletes, leagues |
For Cause | Nonprofits, social impact partnerships |
Event sponsorship presentations are made to assist people or businesses in asking brands to sponsor their online, in-person, or both. The deck should highlight the purpose and target audience of the event. It should also explain how the sponsor can help attendees experience and contribute to the event's overall success.
Here’s an event sponsorship decks example below:
A sponsorship deck is a presentation that influencers, content creators or thought leaders use to show companies why they are special and why a company should support them. It talks about their number of followers, what they're good at and how a company can drive potential return on investment (ROI) with their sponsorship and endorsement.
On the other hand, brands can share content and brand sponsorship presentations with influencers and content creators they’d like to work with for specific products or events. In this case, their deck must emphasize aligning their brand's message with the content creator's audience.
You can use a deck or proposal for this kind of outreach. Here’s an example of a sponsorship proposal template for a brand collaboration:
A sports sponsorship deck allows sports teams to show how a brand can enhance its visibility through sports events and marketing activities. It provides a brief overview of the benefits provided to sponsors in exchange for their financial support of a sporting event, team, athlete or league.
Here’s just one of Visme’s many sports sponsorship presentation examples below:
For Cause sponsorship decks are primarily focused on organizations that would like sponsorship from social responsibility, nonprofit events or philanthropic efforts. This is one of the most commonly used sponsorship content, next to event sponsorship presentations.
Here’s an example of a For Cause sponsorship deck:
Here are a few sponsorship deck templates, each professionally made and easily customizable so you can tailor them to your needs or industry. You’ll also be provided pro tips or best practices to help you maximize your sponsorship deck experience for both you and your potential sponsor.
And if you're short on time, simply use Visme’s AI Presentation Maker. Provide a text prompt and select your style and the AI Presentation maker will generate a ready-to-use presentation with text, images, icons and more in a matter of minutes. Feel free to use the templates below as inspiration.
As a general sponsorship slide deck, it can be customized for any type of sponsorship request or industry. This blue-toned sponsorship presentation comes with warm hues and holographic highlights to make your titles and section pop, providing a modern monochrome look.
After customizing this template, use Visme's Presentation Studio to deliver your deck live or share a recorded video from your Visme editor. Additionally, you can add private presenter or speaker notes for each slide to help you stay on track with confidence.
This sponsorship deck design is geared toward football or soccer teams looking for a template that effectively demonstrates their team’s mission, goals, achievements and sponsorship packages. It comes in a vibrant red, complemented by black and white accents, maintaining a simple color scheme.
This sponsor package template has a dedicated slide for each of the fundamental elements of a good sponsorship pitch deck, so you use the power of storytelling to demonstrate how sponsors can benefit from partnering with your team.
If you’re looking for a template with a bold touch of neon colors, then you’re probably going to like this corporate sponsorship sports presentation. This fully customizable template is another good sponsorship deck example.
The fonts of this template are playful yet they work well with a sports-centric theme. It has black-and-white scale images so that they add to the design but don’t distract or take too much away from the reader's attention, providing a balance of text and images.
Keep in mind that the ultimate objective of your deck is to leave an unforgettable impression on all individuals who come into contact with it.
This sports team sponsorship presentation is designed with striking visuals, balanced tones and a neat layout. You can add your sports logo and slogan on the cover page with a winning shot in the foreground.
Plus, it has additional slides covering your company’s history, future goals, fan base and reach. You can quickly add more slides remove or readjust their placement to fit your storytelling and sponsorship goals.
If you’re a basketball team or brand, then this sponsorship presentation is sure to help you stand out from the competition. It comes equipped with an eye-catching purple and yellow-themed design and dynamic layouts that make it hard to ignore.
In addition to the usual sponsorship content, it also provides a section to highlight player statistics and future goals and elegantly displays sponsorship packages for readers to choose from with ease.
If you want to get potential sponsors excited about partnering with your soccer team, you can add this template to your list. It’s strategically crafted to balance both visuals and text. You can also add a slide to share past sports marketing campaigns and the ROI you provided partners.
Moreover, this sponsorship deck sample offers space to add video content and charts and expand on the beneficial impact of the partnership between the brand and the sponsor.
This music event sponsorship template allows you to seamlessly present your event idea and how sponsors can make an investment in it. It features a blend of light and dark shades, with red highlights to emphasize details. The slides cover a range of topics, such as:
Maybe you’re not a company or a sports team. Whether you’re an individual with a brand or an author, you can customize this template, which is great for event sponsorship.
It helps to showcase your style and build partnerships that will help sponsor your event.
It comes with a fun yet professional layout of pink and green tones layered with minimalist accents and icons. It has a wide range of chats, fonts and visuals that expertly help to tell the story of your brand and why you should be sponsored.
This management workshop event sponsorship presentation is perfect for anyone who needs sponsorship for a training program or workshop event. Its clean and minimalist design contains well-defined divisions of sections with functional placeholders you can customize to suit your goals.
You can enhance this presentation by adding interactive elements, such as a clickable table of contents, hotspots, linked documents for further reading, or making objects actionable. This flexibility allows you to add content without cluttering your presentation.
Not to mention interactive presentations make a good impression on sponsors by making it easy for them to navigate through your presentation from start to finish.
If you plan on hosting a virtual or in-person business conference, this template will definitely be useful. It uses a combination of vibrant reds and cool tones of white and gray.
Additionally, it includes quotes and phrases to create breaks between sections of your presentation, colorful charts, and sleek object placement to give it a professional finish. You can use it as it is or customize the images and colors to your liking.
Overall, this template will enable you to skillfully showcase your conference, along with presenting details and statistics to maintain a sponsor's interest.
Now that we’ve covered the various types of sponsorship decks you can use based on your sponsorship goals, let’s discuss what should be included in one.
Keep in mind that regardless of what type of sponsorship pitch deck you use, these fundamental sections should always be present in your deck. They will help you effectively convey your overall message and ROI on proposed activations for your potential partner.
Next you might be asking what do sponsorships include? Below is a quick checklist of crucial items that should be included in your sponsorship deck.
Made with Visme Infographic Maker
Feel free to adjust or add additional sections based on what type of sponsorship deck you’ll be creating so it's tailored to your target reader.
Earlier, we highlighted the key differences between a sponsorship deck and a package. So it should come as no surprise that what’s included in a sponsorship package is far more than a deck. A sponsorship package includes:
Made with Vism
Apart from a stunning design, here are practical and effective sponsorship deck best practices to help differentiate your deck from the competition. These practices can be applied before, during, and after finalizing your deck.
Here’s a real-life example of a sponsorship deck from the APNIC 48 Conference. This deck includes the key elements that follows the best practices we'll be diving int:
From “APNIC48 Conference "Source
Below is a quick overview of the 10 sponsorship deck best practices we’ll cover:
Now here’s the breakdown of how these best practices can make your deck better.
It’s always important to have your sponsorship deck designed in your brand colors or your sponsors’. Ensure that a uniformed color scheme, font, images and icons are always used as it allows your deck to look professional, easily identifiable and memorable.
If you prefer to use your own brand colors on hand when customizing any of the templates listed above, use Visme’s AI-powered Brand Wizard. This tool will create a brand kit you can access in any project or provide templates based on your branding in seconds. Simply insert your website URL and watch the wizard go to work.
Never underestimate the power of storytelling and strong visuals. When the Florida Panthers wanted to work with a brand that just wasn’t interested in having a conversation with them, they turned to Visme.
Unlike other presentation software, Visme's functionality helped them visualize their storytelling methods, highlight their best work and showcase why and how the Florida Panthers outshine their competition.
The brand immediately reached out to Bridget Sullivan, Director of Partnership Solutions and her team after they reviewed the Florida Panther’s sponsorship deck:
Director of Partnership Solutions, Florida Panthers
By combining Visme with the team's skills and storytelling techniques, Bridget and her company were able to not only capture the attention of the sponsor but open the dialogue that allowed them to lock him in as a partner.
Director of Partnership Solutions
After you’ve shared your deck with a potential sponsor, use what you’ve learned to improve and maximize the success of your next sponsorship proposal.
For example, analytics from projects published and shared within Visme can be used to learn how sponsors view your presentations, what pages are being looked at and what’s most important to your partner.
This Visme feature empowered Matt Swiren, the Manager of Partnership Marketing of the Denver Broncos, and his team to make data-driven changes and recommendations based on what appealed the most to decision-makers who were viewing their content.
Manager of Partnership Marketing, Denver Broncos
Always add visuals or images to your presentation. Most of the event sponsorship deck examples you’ve seen in this article all have images. Why? It’s for a number of reasons, but primarily it makes your content more persuasive and engaging.
Check this out. A study by Durate found that presentations with visual aids are 43% more persuasive than the same presentations without visuals.
Visuals add clarity to your message. They also keep your readers from getting bored so they stay highly engaged.
At the same time, another study found that 41% of presenters find it challenging to find and use great visuals in their presentations.
Alejandra Mariscalez, Head of Design, puts it this way:
"“Less is more” might be overused, but it still holds true. Always review your deck’s design and remove anything that doesn’t serve a clear purpose. Instead of big blocks of text, break things up with visuals.
In some cases, you don’t need a paragraph at all, you need images that show sponsors the story: the people they’re supporting and the impact they’re making."
With Visme, that’s not the case; you have plenty of options.
First, you can easily swap out icons or images in a template with your own to keep them on brand. or replace them with one of Visme’s thousands of stock images and videos; the choice is yours.
And if you cannot find the perfect image for this template, feel free to use Visme’s AI Image Generator. Enter a prompt and choose from several image output styles: photos, paintings, pencil drawings, or more, then choose the image you like best and add it to your presentation.
Alternatively, if you have images that need editing or a magic touch, Visme’s AI TouchUp Tools will help to sharpen, unblur, erase and replace objects and more.
Visme is more than a presentation app. You’re bound to find or create what you need when you need it most.
Use all your current tech tools and software to your advantage. As important as it is to work as a team on your sponsorship pitch deck, it’s also invaluable to use your current tech toolbox to enhance your sponsor's experience and interdepartmental workflow.
Visme allows a myriad of integrations to elevate the user experience because teams need to be able to access their tools to work productively. With its Salesforce integration, it bridges the gap between content and sales or client acquisition.
This is what provided Noah Nelson, Senior Corporate Relationship Executive of the New England Patriots, and his team with a massive opportunity to visualize how clients and partners are reviewing their Visme projects directly back in Salesforce where their Sales team lives day to day.
Senior Corporate Relationship Executive, New England Patriots
This helped them save time by avoiding the back-and-forth of toggling between different platforms. Also, they no longer had to wait for recurring reports from other team members about the traffic their proposals received.
Pro Tip: Need help connecting the dots between sales and marketing? Click here to see how Visme can help you.
Before sending off your deck, always double-check that you've clearly defined your objectives, key performance indicators and the ROI sponsors will receive if they decide to partner with you.
A sponsorship deck is an invitation to a larger discussion. You want to establish that you mean business and are committed to delivering strong value through this sponsorship. If your ROI, KPIs, and objectives aren't detailed or convincing, you risk losing clients. Regardless of how visually striking your presentation may be, you're likely to be overlooked for a competitor who has provided these details.
If you're unsure whether the current copy or details you've provided hit the mark or missed it, reach out to someone on your team or a different department to review them. This will give you a fresh perspective and the opportunity to make any necessary adjustments.
Jesse Morgan, Affiliate Marketing Manager of Event Tickets Center added the following insights:
“In my experience, the most effective sponsorships are aligned around performance goals and tailored value. For example, one of our top-tier sponsors didn’t care about VIP event passes or logo placement. What they wanted was exclusive placement in our post-purchase emails because they knew that drove actual conversions.
Another sponsor asked to be featured in our TikTok ad creative instead of the event signage because that’s where their audience hangs out. If you take the time to ask each sponsor what success looks like to them, you can build pricing and benefits around outcomes they’ll actually pay for.”
Don't fall into the trap of simply stating that you've done great work in the past or that you're the best without data or proof to fully support your claims. Providing statistics or data visualizations is a powerful tool for both visual impact and storytelling.
You can transform raw or extensive data into a format that's easy for sponsors to understand, allowing them to follow the trends associated with your achievements. For example, take a look at the template above, see how well they used a variety of visual charts to showcase demographics, past event success, and platform reach.
If you find that your presentation has more text than data charts to convey essential information to potential sponsors, you may be making it less visual, more cluttered and harder to follow.
Visme offers a wide range of data visualization tools, including widgets, charts, and graphics for simplifying complex data. Additionally, Visme allows you to import data from popular tools like Hubspot, Google Excel, and more.
While it may be tempting to send the same sponsorship proposal or deck to multiple sponsors, doing this can work against you rather than for you. Each sponsor is unique, even if they’re in the same industry or audience. You'll not only need to do this for your deck but your sponsorship agreements.
Personalizing your sponsorship deck to the specific sponsor and their brand can help you establish a deeper connection and set you apart from competitors who send generic 'sponsor me' decks.
Highlight specific benefits and opportunities that directly address the sponsor's needs. If you're unsure about how to personalize it to their needs, start with online research. Explore their latest campaigns, ads, or sponsorship activations and consider how you can add value. Staying updated on your sponsor's latest updates or news can also help you align your deck with their future goals.
Avoid sending lengthy presentations for sponsors to review. Nowadays, people have shorter attention spans, even in the corporate world. If a sponsor has to scroll through more than 30 slides, there's a high possibility they'll become disengaged and forget important details.
Remember that your deck should serve as an invitation to a more in-depth conversation, not the conversation itself.
Pro Tip: One useful guideline to follow is the 10-20-30 rule. This means your presentation should consist of 10 slides, take about 20 minutes to present, and use a minimum font size of 30 points.
However, there are some exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you're not personally presenting your deck and the sponsor will be reading it independently, you may need to add more context to ensure they grasp the essential details of your proposal. In that case, aiming for 10-15 slides could be a suitable approach.
Visme also allows you to create master templates. This ensures you and your team can access branded templates, maintaining brand integrity when presenting to stakeholders or sponsors. integrity.
As you build out your sponsorship pitch deck, begin building relationships with key decision-makers within the brand. Attend their events, connect on social media or LinkedIn, and start engaging with them regularly. Avoid making it seem forced; remember that fostering a relationship takes time.
Once you send your deck, promptly follow up to confirm its receipt and inquire about when you can expect a response, whether it's positive or negative.
Regardless of the sponsor's decision, continue nurturing that relationship. If the sponsor agrees, you've already established a strong rapport. If they choose not to partner with you this time, your ongoing relationship could influence their decision in the future.
Now let's discuss how to create a pitch deck for sponsors. A sponsorship deck is your pitch in presentation form. It should clearly communicate your event’s value, audience, and the return sponsors can expect. Here's how to build one that gets noticed:
1. Start With a Strong Introduction: Briefly introduce your organization and event. Include your mission, what the event is about, and why it matters. Keep it short, use 1 to 2 slides max.
2. Define Your Audience: Include key stats like number of attendees, industries, job roles, and demographics. Sponsors want to know who they’ll reach.
3. Highlight Sponsorship Benefits: Break down what sponsors will get in return. This should include brand exposure, on-site visibility, email mentions, booth space, lead lists, etc. Use bullet points and visuals where possible.
4. Outline Sponsorship Tiers: Create clear tiered packages (e.g., Platinum, Gold, Silver) that show what’s included at each level. Use a comparison chart to make it easy to scan.
5. Add Visual Mockups: Help sponsors picture their logo or booth placement by including mockups of signage, web placements, or past events.
6. Include Real Impact or Testimonials: If you’ve run past events, share sponsor quotes, ROI stats, or success stories. These build credibility fast.
7. Make It Easy to Take Action: End with clear next steps. Your CTA can be who to contact, deadlines, and a link to your full sponsorship package or form.
Lastly, don’t stress too much about how long your sponsorship deck should be. Focus on including the information that matters and skip the fluff. Quality over length always wins.
When it comes to crafting stunning sponsorship decks for your business, Visme offers a user-friendly platform that simplifies the process. No design experience or coding is required.
Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a compelling sponsorship deck with Visme:
Create a Visme account or log in to your existing one. If you’re new to Visme, you can easily create an account in a matter of seconds and start creating.
Once you're in, you'll be redirected to the dashboard. From the Dashboard, select "New Project" then "Presentations."
Visme's library of professionally designed templates that are not only beautiful but functional as well, made with users like you in mind. They cover a wide range of industries, needs and use cases.
Select the template you like the most, allow the Brand Wizard to provide suggestions that match your brand or skip this step and select the option to start from a blank canvas.
Earlier, we demonstrated some of the ways you can leverage Visme to create a well-rounded sponsorship deck. Those were just a few of the ways in which Visme can empower you and your team to maximize your skills.
If you need to assign sections of your deck to team members or involve the design team, you can replace the lengthy email chains and endless Slack messages with Visme's collaborative features.
You can create workflows for projects, assign tasks or specific slides, work simultaneously on the same project, add comments, and view real-time updates and changes.
Plus, each Visme project also includes user permissions, allowing you to choose who can share your work (publicly or privately), as well as specify who can view, comment on, or edit your project. This way, you maintain complete control over your work.
When working on multiple decks to ensure your presentations remain personalized and up-to-date, consider adding dynamic fields to your Visme presentation.
Dynamic fields allow for the automatic insertion of your personal and company information. You can personalize these fields and assign any necessary values. Update dynamic fields across multiple projects or sections of your deck instantly with just one click!
Once you’ve customized and edited your template to your liking, it’s time to publish and share your deck. There are multiple ways you can publish your deck, you can:
A good sponsorship deck uses engaging visuals and compelling storytelling to highlight the benefits of a corporate partnership between the two brands and resonate with the reader.
Use Visme to create not only a good sponsorship deck but an impressive one. Access their library of expertly designed sponsorship templates and customize them to your needs.
The ABCs of sponsorship are Audience (who is the main target audience of your request), Benefits (what are the mutual benefits of this partnership) and Content (provide visuals and detailed context to support your request). Each of these elements should be highlighted with strong storytelling characteristics so that the overall content of your sponsorship deck is appealing to potential sponsors.
There are three types of sponsorship in sports: financial sponsorship, product/service sponsorship and media or marketing sponsorship. You can use one of each or create a sponsorship deck, giving the sponsor the option to choose which sponsorship method works best for them. This can sometimes be highlighted in the sponsorship package.
Typically, a sponsorship deck should be concise and to the point, avoiding unnecessary details. A good rule of thumb is to keep it between 10 and 15 pages. This allows for enough room to showcase your brand and provide relevant information to potential sponsors, while also keeping their attention.
The way you categorize sponsors depends on various factors, such as the type of event or activity being sponsored, the level of support provided, and the intended audience or target market.
Some common ways to categorize sponsors include title sponsors, presenting sponsors, official sponsors, and supporting sponsors.
Title sponsors typically provide the highest level of support and receive the most prominent branding and recognition, while supporting sponsors may provide smaller contributions and receive less visibility.
A sponsorship deck typically includes information about the event or project being sponsored, the target audience, the benefits of sponsoring the event or project, and the different sponsorship packages available.
It may also include details about the sponsor’s brand and how it aligns with the event or project, as well as any previous successful sponsorships or partnerships the organization has had.
The deck may also feature testimonials from past sponsors or participants, as well as any media coverage or press releases related to the event or project.
Generally, a sponsorship deck design service can cost anywhere from $100 to $1000. More advanced and complex decks can range from a thousand to as much as $10,000. The good news is that you don’t have to blow your budget on hiring a design service.
Visme offers everything you need to create stunning sponsorship designs at a fraction of the cost. Besides saving costs, using Visme saves you a lot of time, as you don’t have to go through the hassle of back-and-forth emails and multiple revision cycles. Access a wide range of templates, an intuitive editor, cutting-edge features, and an AI-powered presentation maker to bring your deck to life.
Still in doubt? Read this case study to find out How the Florida Panthers Maximize Their Workflow & Win New Clients Using Visme.
Crafting an impressive sponsorship deck is the first step to securing a sponsorship. It has to be strategically written and beautifully designed to open the door to key conversations with key sponsors.
By following these guidelines and using the recommended sponsorship pitch deck examples, you'll be better equipped to craft sponsorship decks that not only impress but also establish valuable partnerships to fuel your ventures.
The best part? Visme isn’t just a presentation software for creating decks. It's an all-in-one content creation platform that enables you or your sales and marketing team to produce stunning visuals, marketing campaigns, and various materials for your sponsors, stakeholders, and team.
Ready to take your overall content creation and workflow to the next level? Request a demo or give Visme a free test run and see what Visme can do for you and your team.
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