Event Sponsorship

Sponsoring events helps us to connect with new audiences and generate brand awareness of the work of the Harpur Trust and how we help to improve people’s lives.

How is sponsorship different to a grant?

Grants help organisations in the borough deliver projects which meet one of our charitable objectives to promote education, provide relief for Bedford residents in need and support recreation with a social welfare purpose. We don’t fund events through our Grants Programme, as it is very hard to assess their impact on our strategic objectives.

We award more than £1million a year in grants, but our sponsorship budget is a much smaller pot of money, around one per cent of our grant budget. It helps us to fund one off events and makes up part of our marketing budget. It allows us to connect and interact with our local community and to show our support for Bedford.

What are our different types of sponsorship?

We sponsor big, regular, Bedford events which celebrate the borough, its diversity and unsung heroes such as the Community Stage at The Bedford River Festival and the Everyday Hero Awards. These events offer fully costed sponsorship packages and allow us to reach tens, to hundreds of thousands of people, in Bedford and beyond, through advertising.

We also sponsor much smaller events so we can interact with members of the community who might not necessarily engage with the bigger events we sponsor. These events are normally ineligible for our grant funding.

We typically offer up to £500 to local organisations putting on an event where we can reach local audiences in the hundreds or thousands and raise our profile by offering social media mentions, banners and branding at the event, promotional stands, or even giving a speech. For example, the Bedford Iftar and Bedford African Community Event.

How does my organisation apply for sponsorship?

You can apply for sponsorship by filling out our Sponsorship Request Form. We ask that you apply as far in advance as you can. Our financial year runs from July each year and we set the budget around March. If you know you have an event coming up, please get in contact as soon as possible with our Communications Manager.

We will consider whether your event aligns with our charitable objects, what its aims are, whether it helps us connect with new audiences, how many people are attending and how much reach can be gained out of advertising or social media posts. If you have run the event before we’ll look at how successful it was and we’ll also want to know who your other sponsors are.

We also attend the events, help promote them and ask that following the event you fill out an evaluation form , to highlight its impact.

Any questions

Any questions you have please contact our Communications Manager Helen Hutchinson by email or phone 01234 369519.

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