How to process a sponsorship

Companies often support HBA through event sponsorship (both virtual and in-person). Sponsorship types are defined as follows:

  • Cash sponsorship: where a company provides a sum of money towards the event
  • In-kind sponsorship or donations: where a company provides products, goods and services for the event (including but not limited to the event venue, food/beverage, AV, event security, etc) and no cash is exchanged. As a 501(c)(6) organization, the HBA must log and track all in-kind donations for auditing purposes so it is crucial not to miss this step.

Depending on the type of sponsorship you are dealing with, please follow these procedures:

Cash sponsorship (to be completed upon initial sponsor sign-on for the event):

  1. Upon verbal agreement from the sponsor, the HBA event or corporate relations leader should draft pages 1 and 2 of the HBA Invoice Request and Sponsorship Agreement Form v2023.pdf and then send to the sponsor contact for completion and signature.
  2. The completed and signed agreement should then be sent to the Regional Treasurer for counter-signature and tracking purposes. 
  3. Regional treasurer sends to HBA Central finance team (hbachptrinvoices@hbanet.org) for processing and notifies the appropriate CR leader and HBA event leader for their awareness
  4. HBA Central finance enters information into AMS system and generates the sponsorship invoice
  5. The invoice is sent to the billing contact for payment, copying the regional treasurer and HBA event leader
  6. Once invoice has been paid, HBA Central finance will notify the regional treasurer and HBA event leader. Note: benefits fulfillment (i.e. discount codes for sponsor attendees, etc) should not be given until invoice has been paid

In-kind sponsorship (to be completed immediately post-event when the total value of in-kind donations are realized/final):

  1. Immediately post-event, the HBA event or corporate relations leader should draft pages 1 and 2 of the HBA Invoice Request and Sponsorship Agreement Form v2023.pdf and then send to the sponsor contact for completion and signature.
  2. The completed and signed agreement should then be sent to Regional Treasurer for counter-signature and tracking purposes.
  3. Regional treasurer sends to HBA Central finance team (hbachptrinvoices@hbanet.org) for logging and notifies the appropriate CR leader and HBA event leader for their awareness

In the rare case that a company is providing both cash and in-kind donations for an event, please complete the HBA Invoice Request and Sponsorship Agreement Form.pdf twice, following the above procedures, once upon initial sign-on to generate an invoice for the cash sponsorship, and a second time immediately post event to record the in-kind donation value.