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useR! Knowledgebase

6 Sponsors

Sponsorship can make or break an event.

Signing on event sponsors is a great way to offset the costs associated with organizing an event. A sponsorship campaign should start right after the end of the previous useR!, or even better, you can even start approaching future sponsors during the previous userR!.

6.1 Previous Sponsors

Below you can find the list of past sponsors of useR! from 2014 to 2021, and their corresponding sponsorship level. This list can be used to contact previous sponsors for renewing their sponsorship contract.

Table 1: List of sponsors by year

6.2 Guidelines for the sponsorship team

We advise you to consider the following important learning from previous organizers:

  • Use the list of past sponsors! Note that you will require permission from the previous year’s team to gain access to contact details.
  • Consider if there have been any new companies in the R ecosystem (new IDEs/R GUIs, R consultancies, companies publicizing their use of R). Look out for lists such as this (last updated - October 8th, 2021).
  • Consider sponsors from other R/stats/data science companies, as well as well-known local companies.
  • Consider local sponsors, such as your local district, the mayor of your city or other administrative levels. Local sponsors more likely to support in-person events because they hope that the organization of useR! can attract tourism on the city and be aligned with their existing promotional strategies in academia, tech, and data. They can sometimes also provide organizational support (metro ticket for the conference attendees, organization of a welcome reception at the city hall, and so on).
  • Consider academic sponsors like universities or research institutes, which are directly involved in the event organization. You can also consider scientific groups, e.g. scientific societies or other more specific scientific groups interested in R.
    • In 2019, we had 4 scientific groups supporting useR! financially and involved in the financing poster prizes relating to their topics of interest.
  • Consider foundations and general event funds, especially to support accessibility.
  • Sponsor packages: These are decided upon by the global organizing team. You can use the brochure from previous years to help you make your decisions.
  • Sponsors are also encouraged to check this page to familiarize themselves with useR!. This page contains photos, an outline of the program.
  • You can also use the useR! infoboard (Work in Progress) which contains some attendance statistics. Note: For useR! 2021, we had people trying to find sponsors HQ’ed in different regions. The R Consortium will always provide some support for useR!, though the details may vary from year to year.
  • Potential media sponsors local or global:
    • Newspaper
    • Podcast
    • TV shows Note: Based on previous years trend, media sponsors mentioned above are more active during in-person conference.

Point to Remember

  • We do NOT offer speaker slots in return for sponsorship, and we want to maintain a standard policy on the pricing inside a given conference
  • We do NOT ever give out or sell lists with contact details of attendees. You can share demographics in aggregate to give sponsors a feel for what kind of crowd will attend.

6.3 Communication with sponsors

It is important to have a sponsorship team (2-3 people), and a dedicated email for sponsorship. Here’s an example for a standard procedure to manage the sponsorship campaign:

  • First informational contact, usually a personalized e-mail, sometimes following an introduction/meeting, sometimes a cold-call, and, if appropriate, reminder(s) with a standardized email. A brochure describing the conference and the different levels of sponsorship can also be attached to this email;

  • Once the agreement is made, you can decide (or not depending on your local legal constrains) to sign a formal agreement;

  • Follow-up of the sponsorship payment and (if needed) reminder(s).

It is also advised that at least one person in the organization team is entirely dedicated to the communication with sponsors. They will require information about their booth setup, to solve their problems during the conference and to inform them in general. See also the Section on the venue of the conference for further information about booth installation.