Potential Sponsor Perks
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Hackathons can find unique and fascinating ways of involving sponsors in different aspects of their event to benefit everyone involved. The range of perks you can offer your sponsors is limitless.
A sponsored prize track or category can significantly boost interest in your hackathon for the sponsors as well as the participants. For sponsors, this could result in new people contributing in unique ways towards their product. For hackers, this is an additional prize for them to aim for during the hackathon!
We recommend matching the value of your sponsors' prizes with the ones your team is providing for the event to avoid overshadowing other prize categories.
If your sponsors are running a prize track, request that they bring a representative who is familiar with their challenge so hackers can ask questions, get feedback, and talk to them about the track. This is the best way to guarantee meaningful interactions between hackers and sponsors, and often leads to better project quality and sponsor satisfaction.
We also recommend having your sponsors send someone to actively mentor and start conversations with hackers. You should also encourage them to monitor a sponsor-specific channel for their company in your Slack/Discord where they can respond at all times.
This is a great way of keeping your hackers engaged and increasing the presence of your sponsors. Be mindful of balancing turnout with hacker morale; you will have a hard time getting anyone to attend a Sunday workshop (with Pitching Your Project or Submitting Your Project as the only exceptions) because hackers will be exhausted by then. Try to schedule all your workshops on Friday/Saturday and hold introductory workshops early on to give hackers enough time to experiment with what they learn.
The page has some examples of sponsor-hosted workshops.
As you’re hosting games and competitions throughout the event, mix it up with sponsor vs hacker vs organizers challenges! If your sponsor isn’t as interested in technical workshops, see if they’re interested in hosting a mini-event or game. Some sponsors don't think they are allowed to participate in the fun mini-events, so encourage one of your organizers (potentially your sponsorship lead) to go around before mini-events to get the sponsors to come take a break and hang with hackers! You can check out some mini-event ideas under our section.
One perk many sponsors find valuable is strengthening their talent pipeline by talking to hackers. Depending on the time of year, your sponsors may be interested in participating in various opportunities. If a sponsor is primarily interested in recruiting, there are several ways to engage them. Some nonexhaustive ideas include:
Resume critiques – Office hours where recruiters help hackers edit and perfect their resumes.
1:1 Recruiter/Sponsorship Fair – A dedicated space where hackers can chat with sponsors/ recruiters about anything: their resume, job expectations, company culture, etc.
Interviews – If you’re providing resumes in advance, your recruiters may be interested in interviewing your hackers during the event. We recommend using a dedicated office-style space to respect the privacy of the interview process.