A gala sponsorship is several things at once: a gift, a set of seats, a logo on a banner, and often a payment that arrives in two pieces months apart. Altru’s event tools were built mainly around registrations, meaning one person, one price, one seat. Sponsorships don’t fit that shape very well, so the work is deciding how to break a sponsorship into pieces Altru does understand, and doing it the same way for every sponsor.
Below are the three common ways to model sponsorship levels for a special event in Altru, what each one costs you in reporting, and how to handle the parts Altru won’t track for you.
First, decide what a sponsorship actually is in your books
Before you touch event setup, get your finance lead to answer three questions. The answers decide which model fits.
- How much of each level is a gift? A $5,000 sponsorship that includes eight dinner seats is not a $5,000 donation. The fair market value of the benefits usually has to be separated from the deductible portion, and the acknowledgment letter has to say so. Confirm the treatment with your auditor or tax advisor; don’t let the event setup decide it for you.
- Is it event revenue or development revenue? Some organizations count the whole sponsorship toward the event’s goal. Others book the gift portion to an annual fund or a corporate giving designation and only the ticket value to the event.
- Does the sponsor pay all at once? Corporate sponsors often commit in spring and pay on an invoice in the fall. That pushes you toward pledges rather than a single payment.
Three ways to set up sponsorship levels
1. Sponsorship levels as registration options
Create a registration option on the event for each level (Presenting, Gold, Table Host, and so on), priced at the full sponsorship amount, with the number of included guests reflected in how you register the party.
Good for: smaller events where the sponsorship is mostly a premium ticket. Attendance and revenue stay together on the event, and event reports show sponsors next to everyone else.
Watch out for: the gift portion. If the whole amount posts as registration revenue, your acknowledgment and your giving totals will need adjusting. Check in a sandbox or with Blackbaud support how your version handles a registration option that includes a contribution amount before you build twelve levels this way.
2. Sponsorship as a donation, plus complimentary registrations
Record the sponsorship as a gift (or a pledge) to an event-related designation, then register the sponsor’s guests separately at a complimentary or benefit-value price.
Good for: organizations that care most about clean giving history and accurate acknowledgments. The sponsor’s constituent record shows a gift, which is what your major gifts officer wants to see next year.
Watch out for: the link between the two. Nothing ties the gift to the seats unless you make it, so use a consistent appeal or source code and a constituent attribute or note naming the level. Without that, building a “who sponsored and did they show up” report becomes a spreadsheet project.
3. Split the sponsorship into gift and benefit
Record two pieces for each sponsor: registrations at fair market value for the included seats, and a gift for the remainder. This is the most accurate model and the most work at entry time.
Good for: larger galas with many corporate sponsors where finance needs the split to be exact.
Watch out for: staff consistency. Write a one-page sheet per level listing the exact split (for example, Gold = eight seats at the stated benefit value plus the remainder as a gift) so nobody does the math at the desk.
Handling the parts Altru won’t track for you
Whichever model you choose, a few sponsorship details usually live outside the event setup:
- Guest names. Sponsors rarely know who’s filling their table when they commit. Register placeholder guests under the sponsor and replace them as names arrive. Set a deadline in your sponsor agreement so the seating chart isn’t built the night before.
- Benefits fulfillment. Logo deadlines, program ad sizes, and mentions from the podium don’t have an obvious home in Altru. A constituent attribute for the level plus a shared checklist is usually enough.
- Recognition lists. Build a query that pulls sponsors by level, with the recognition name you want printed. Run it for the program, the signage, and the website so all three match.
- Open balances. If you use pledges, a query of unpaid sponsorship pledges for the event gives your development team a weekly follow-up list.
Collecting the money
Sponsors tend to pay by check or on an invoice, and the slowest part of the process is often getting a payment link or remittance details into the right inbox at the sponsor’s company. Decide up front whether you accept card payments for sponsorships, and whether you’ll ask sponsors to cover processing fees on large amounts. Then make sure every payment, however it arrives, gets applied to the right pledge or registration rather than posted as a loose gift.
For the payment step specifically, Link2Pay lets you send a sponsor a branded pay-by-link for an invoice, deposit, or pledge balance, and the payment posts to Altru. It doesn’t change how you model the sponsorship; it just shortens the gap between “yes, we’re in” and money in the bank.
Quick answers
Does Altru have a built-in sponsorship level feature for events?
Not in the sense of packaged levels that combine a gift, seats, and benefits. Most organizations assemble it from registration options, gifts or pledges, and attributes. If you’re unsure what your version supports, test the setup in a sandbox before your sponsor deck goes out.
Which model should a first-time gala use?
Model 2 (gift plus complimentary registrations) is usually the easiest to keep accurate with a small team, as long as you code every sponsorship gift consistently.
