Sponsorships & Corporate Connections

When we have a budget deficit, we fill the gap with both cash and material donations from corporate partners. Here are the list of our sponsors to date:

NER’s Founding-17C Sponsors:

2022-2023 Sponsors (17D & 22A):

Many of these sponsors are acquired through students on NER who have complete co-ops or internships at these companies. For example, Instron—our largest sponsors of the 22-23 season—became a sponsor with the help of Sofia Varner, who worked at the company.

Otherwise, we typically send cold emails and requests to companies we’d like to join our sponsorship network. These companies are typically identified either by our engineers, who will frequently have specific requests for products and materials that they need, or by our finance team. Our finance team will typically look at companies who frequently sponsor other collegiate racing teams, or companies whose logo would be impressive on our car. More frequently than not, we let the engineers tell us what they need.

Cold Emails

Here’s the template we base our cold emails off of. Be sure to insert the company’s name, along with a paragraph explaining why we are reaching out to them specifically. Feel free to switch it up; just make sure to communicate with people in #finance about emails before sending them, and loop in members of e-board when you’re unsure of what we should and shouldn’t say.

Sponsorship Packet

Our sponsorship packet details information about NER for prospective sponsors. We attach it to all sponsorship inquiry emails. It was designed by Catherine Kennedy in InDesign in the spring of 2022, and has been updated each semester since. The current version, which has been approved by the university, is here:

Corporate Connections Coordinators are not required to know how to use InDesign, but it would be amazing if they’re willing to learn. We previously made our packets in google slides, which was fine but not very professional. The packet is still updated by Catherine because she is the only one who is willing and who knows how to use InDesign on NER currently

Corporate Connections Coordinator Responsibilities & Recommendations

Responsibilities:

Reports to: Head of Finance
Attend weekly business meetings
Organize events with interested companies/potential sponsors
Advertise upcoming events within NER’s slack channels (usually #general & #career)
Coordinate with club members to reach out to potential sponsors via email
Maintain google sheet of all sponsors and details of their sponsorship
Update NER’s sponsorship packet with new sponsors

Recommendations:

Stay on top of emails and slack notifications
- Most of this role is communication (you’ll be drafting and sending lots of emails) so make sure you’re reading everything
Ask heads/leads about their specific needs in terms of $$$, manufacturing, etc. and tailor your sponsorship efforts towards them
- Example: Electrical needed a company to assemble their PCBs, so we reached out to a few companies and received a $1500 credit towards PCB assembly
If unsure of what to write in a sponsorship inquiry, run a draft by Head of Finance and relevant leads/heads and ask for support
- When it comes to getting somebody the money/resources they need to complete a project, they should be willing to help you write whatever you need to make it happen