A Question of Sponsorship for Environmental and Eco Projects
As with any event, it not only took effort but it took money to put on Content Rising.
Organisers found values-aligned sponsors to help cover the costs of staging the event earlier this month, including the wonderful presentation tent in the fields of Wakehurst in Sussex, England.
And it got me reflecting on the wider topic of sponsorship – and specifically how it relates to a project I’m working on.
Traditional sponsorship is transactional in nature. Sponsor gives money. Sponsor expects promotion, coverage and audience in return.
How might sponsorship be different in the future so the focus is less on “What’s in it for us”?
MORE QUESTIONS:
- How would it be if we stopped using the word ‘sponsorship’ and called it something different?
- How do ethically minded organisations, events or projects find or choose ‘sponsors’ without crossing a line around their values?
- What if even 1% of the sponsorship of fossil fuel industries was reinvested in sustainability and green technology?
- The current funding system for charities, organisations and individuals feels like an unsustainable ‘feast or famine’ approach to helping good people do good for the planet. What alternatives might there be or how could the application system be less of a ‘feeding frenzy’?
- People keep telling me sustainability is important and that one of the biggest challenges is in communicating so the messages get through (so people and organisations change behaviours). If so, why is there so little funding, philanthropy or support going into that (UK, I am especially looking at you)?
- Where is the money to allow independent journalists, green-minded content creators and sustainability communicators to build, nurture and future-proof media ecosystems*?
(* Ecosystems which include community journalism, Citizen Journalists, solutions journalism, diversity of communicators; ecosystems which support news, features, analysis, investigative journalism, positive news and video, to reach different audiences and in formats that help get the message across)
And, on the taking action side...
- Who is interested in creating a community-based news and communications ecosystem in Scotland?
