Programme sponsorship

A nature centre's clearest purpose is getting children outdoors who otherwise would not be, and the barrier is almost always a fee — a field trip charge, a bus, a camp place. Each of those is a small, exact number and a purchasable unit.

Units that work

• A field trip for one class, at the published fee
• The bus, which is frequently the larger barrier and which nobody funds
• An outreach visit to a school that cannot travel
• A summer camp place, or a week of one
• A whole school's programme for a year
• A seasonal public programme — maple sugaring, the night hike series, the spring wildflower walks
• Equipment for programmes: nets, magnifiers, binoculars, field guides

The bus is the one to lead with. Centres publish the programme fee and forget that a school which cannot afford transport is excluded regardless of what the programme costs, and donors find that specific and surprising.

Publish the numbers

How many schools asked for assistance, how many the centre could support, how many children came who otherwise could not. These are operational numbers the centre already has, they identify nobody, and the gap between the first two figures is the campaign's argument.

Keep scholarships invisible

The same discipline as camperships. A school on assistance does the same programme, the children are not told, and no child at a camp knows who paid.

• Never publish which schools received support
• Never publish a count small enough to identify in a small district
• Same forms, same programme, same everything
• For camp scholarships, cover the extras too — the packed lunch, the water bottle, the T-shirt — because a child without them has been identified by the process

What a sponsor receives

• Yes: the knowledge that a class visit or camp place was funded
• Yes: aggregate reporting — children reached, schools served, programmes delivered
• Yes: recognition, and photographs of the trail and the equipment
• No: the identity of a school, class or child receiving assistance
• No: attending the funded programme
• No: photographs of identifiable children without the school's and the parents' consent

Seasonal programmes sponsor well

Maple sugaring, the autumn festival, the night hike series and the spring wildflower walks are recognisable local institutions, and a business sponsoring one is buying association with something people already love.

Price them at what they cost to run, name the sponsor in the programme listing, and keep the relationship annual — these renew more reliably than anything else in a centre's fundraising.

Report to the schools too

Tell the teachers what the auction funded, because they are the people who will recommend the centre to other teachers and who tell parents where their children went. A centre's best promotional channel is a teacher who had a good field trip.

General information, not legal advice for your centre. Permit conditions for educational wildlife, and what those animals may be used for, come from the issuing agency — ask them in writing rather than interpreting the permit yourself.