Owner’s Manual: Joshua Kennedy
Want to secure juicy sponsorships for your gym? Joshua Kennedy shares the inside scoop.
Vital Stats:
Name: Joshua Kennedy, founder, owner and coach
Gym: Intensity Cheer Elite
Location: Horseheads, New York
Size: Six cheer teams and three dance teams
Gym size: 16,500 square feet
Debrief: As founder, owner, and coach at Horseheads, New York-based Intensity Cheer Elite, Joshua Kennedy has his hands full managing this rapidly growing gym. Now in its fourth year, Intensity has been successfully seeking out creative sponsorships and partnerships to help offset some of the costs and expenses that come with running a gym with 75 cheerleaders. Kennedy took the time to share his experiences and give some tips about seeking out – and securing – local and corporate sponsorships.
The Dish: When getting started, it’s important to evaluate the perception of cheerleading in your area. When I first I opened four years ago and asked this same question, I would say it would have been unrealistic to get a business sponsor without an “insider.” Since then, my program has helped to change the community’s outlook on competitive cheer and they are much more supportive now.
In addition, people are seeing that we are not just about training athletes but also about building character, which provides a greater attraction for support. Give a business reasons they should support the program, showing how it will in turn provide something worthwhile to their business. Also, make sure your gym is showing support for the community. Our program goes caroling during Christmas, conducts food drives for the local food bank and raises cancer awareness.
For this season, my gym offers a few different tiers of sponsorship: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. In the lowest tier (Bronze), I start a low bottom offer of a sponsorship of $25, which gets their business email recognized on our website. As you go up the tiers, the sponsorship commitment increases. Platinum requires a sponsorship of more than $1,000, for which I offer the business a window advertisement (and space for) their marketing material inside my gym. They also get a plaque with a program photo for them to display in their place of business; I am also offering sponsors of this tier [a photo op in which] they may hold a placement trophy from one of our events.
Overall, the bottom line of the gym is greatly impacted by sponsorships. I’ve received not just monetary support, but also material support such as wood supplies, paint and food for fundraising dinners. We’ve turned $400 in food donations from businesses and local supporters and had the fundraiser bring in over $3,000. These fundraisers, donations and sponsorships enable me to assure my clients that I have community support to help them offset the costs of the season.
Ultimately, sponsorships do enable us to travel more with our teams. However, the ownership of the gym has the ability to direct sponsorships to where they need them to be. Since my program has been growing so fast, many of my sponsorships have been focusing on new facilities, facility improvement and equipment investments. If the owner can show the community and businesses that their sponsorships are benefiting the kids (and not the bottom line), the possibilities can be endless.
Visit our “Biz Docs” section to see the letter Kennedy uses to secure sponsorships!