Sponsors?

Do you have any sponsors that sponsor you with prizes in contest or anything like that?

How did you find them?
And how did you convince them to sponsor just you with the prizes and not your competition?

 

I'm my own sponsor.

For those who are looking for a sponsor, it is sometimes hard to find one. There are not many people who are willing to fund something without hard evidence that such a venture will be successful in the long-run, and because of this, it's not an easy task - in fact, it can be daunting. A few questions to keep in mind when presenting your case to a possible sponsor:

• What are my current plans? How do they compare to what I have in store for the future?
• What sort of contest would "spruce up" the community?
• What will the sponsor gain in return for his/her generosity?
• What sort of funding is needed for the project?

 

I sponsor myself usually but if now the general questions you want is what Chris said. Those are usually your top answers for all the questions a potential sponsor should have if he/she is reliable.

Also a question I ask when I am thinking of sponsoring is:
What kind of community/site are you planning to have this on?
Will there be and illegal happenings within this competition?
Will you guarantee that the receiver follows our TOS and AUP, and do you understand that if he/she does not the account will be suspended we can not be held accountable and you will be placed on our 'do-not-sponsor list'

Got think legality here cause if its a company they don't want anything illegal happening or they may be shut down.

 

I haven't gone looking for sponsors, but when buying a prize for a contest I told the vendor (a little mom and pop type of online store) what I intended it for and they threw in an extra prize.

 

I got lucky and found a very willing sponsor, rather easily.

We had a contest a long time ago, and since my forum is about a type of pet bird, I contacted the owner of an all-bird forum with a very popular online bird store, and long story short, he said he would be willing to give away a $10 gift card on a monthly basis since I have photo contests and such every month, in return for a banner ad on the forumdisplay page above the thread listing.

I haven't taken him up on his offer for a monthly gift card, but instead I just email him every few months (when we have one of our bigger contests going on) and let him know that I'm going to need one coming up.
Since I haven't used one in a while, he's going to combine two and let me give away a $20 gift card to the winner of the Next Top Model competition we've got going on.

Some sponsors are just very willing and generous (like the one I'm dealing with) so you just have to find the right one.