Backed by Y CombinatorThree documents and three sheets that cost every sponsor benefit before you promise it, so the partnership nets what it says it will.
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What you get
Pack of 6 files: 3 documents, 3 spreadsheets
Corporate Sponsorship Proposal TemplateBenefit and Recognition Schedule
| Tier | Price | Benefits | Cost to deliver | Net margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Tier 1] | — | — | — | — |
| [Tier 2] | — | — | — | — |
| [Tier 3] | — | — | — | — |
[Priced the same way, line by line, once the specific benefit mix is final.]
Every corporate sponsorship template on page one does the same thing: a table pairing an investment range with a benefits list, Presenting at $10,000 and up, Gold in the middle, name-only at the bottom. The table describes what a sponsor receives. It never says what those benefits cost the nonprofit to deliver. A comped gala seat, a printed programme ad, and a rented photo backdrop are all real costs, invoice or not. This pack costs every benefit before the price gets quoted, tier by tier and deal by deal.
Greenhollow Literacy Alliance, a fictional literacy nonprofit, publishes three tiers. Community Partner nets $1,000 on a $1,000 price; a webpage mention and a report line cost nothing to produce. Program Partner nets $4,510 on $5,000, four comped gala seats and signage priced at $490. Champion Partner, a proposed $25,000-a-year upgrade for Harrowgate Financial Group, folds in the Turning Pages 5K Walk's Presenting sponsorship the company has held since 2024. It still nets $20,772, an 83.1% margin, once its gala seats, volunteer day, and matching-gift administration are all costed.
Six active, pending, and under-review partners blend to $31,752 net on $39,000 committed, an 81.4% margin, healthy enough to report without a second look. That figure hides Palisade Media Group's negotiated $2,000 package: a comped table, a programme ad, a backdrop rental, preview tickets, and a social post, priced against what felt reasonable, not what it costs. Line by line it runs $2,040, a $40 net loss before a benefit ships. A signed partner still needs its own acknowledgment, and a contact who also carries major-gift capacity belongs in that portfolio instead.
Benefit CostingIllustrative, for a fictional literacy nonprofit called Greenhollow Literacy Alliance. Every tracked prospect's tier or custom package, priced the same way.
| Partner | Tier | Price | Cost to deliver | Net | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halloway Auto Group | Community | $1,000 | $0 | $1,000 | 100.0% |
| Bellcastle Insurance | Program | $5,000 | $490 | $4,510 | 90.2% |
| Wrenfield Credit Union | Program | $5,000 | $490 | $4,510 | 90.2% |
| Harrowgate Financial Group | Champion (proposed) | $25,000 | $4,228 | $20,772 | 83.1% |
| Thornbury Family Foundation | Community | $1,000 | $0 | $1,000 | 100.0% |
| Palisade Media Group | Custom (negotiated) | $2,000 | $2,040 | -$40 | -2.0% |
| 6 active/pending/under review | $39,000 | $7,248 | $31,752 | 81.4% |
Every published tier clears 83% or better. The blended 81.4% still looks healthy, because Palisade's -2.0% is one deal out of six; the loss survives inside a portfolio number nobody would think to question.
Prospect RegisterAll 7 tracked prospects, corporate and foundation together, with the specific fact behind each fit rationale.
| Partner | Type | Proposed tier | Fit rationale | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harrowgate Financial Group | Corporate | Champion (upgrade) | CSR pillar is financial literacy; walk's Presenting sponsor since 2024 | Active |
| Palisade Media Group | Corporate | Custom | Owner sits on the library board; wants press-facing placement | Under review |
| Bellcastle Insurance | Corporate | Program | CSR grants require a youth-literacy focus | Active |
| Wrenfield Credit Union | Corporate | Program | Community reinvestment charter; referred by Bellcastle | Active |
| Halloway Auto Group | Corporate | Community | Local dealership; same family-literacy-night demographic | Active |
| Thornbury Family Foundation | Foundation | Community | Published guidelines name early-childhood literacy | Proposal sent |
| Fenwick & Marsh Realty | Corporate | Community | New office near the tutoring center; no history yet | Prospecting |
Corporate and foundation prospects sit in one register. The fit rationale differs by source, a CSR pillar against a published funding guideline, but the tier, the ask, and the costing are identical either way.
Renewal CalendarSigned terms and their renewal outreach dates, plus decision dates for anything not yet converted to a term.
| Partner | Tier | Term end | Renewal outreach | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bellcastle Insurance | Program | 2026-12-31 | 2026-10-02 | Re-cost before quoting the renewal price |
| Wrenfield Credit Union | Program | 2027-02-28 | 2026-11-30 | Last cycle's cost was $490 against $5,000 |
| Halloway Auto Group | Community | 2027-05-31 | 2027-03-02 | No comped benefits to re-cost |
| Harrowgate Financial Group | Champion (proposed) | 2029-12-31 | — | New 3-year term; target signature 2026-11-15 |
| Palisade Media Group | Custom | — | 2026-09-30 | Decision: re-cost to positive net or let lapse |
| Thornbury Family Foundation | Community (proposed) | — | 2026-11-30 | Foundation board decision, Q4 meeting |
Palisade's decision date is a deadline to fix the number, not a renewal; a deal that already nets negative does not get to wait for a renewal cycle to be corrected.
Opens from the prospect's own fit rationale, states the ask plainly, and closes with a dated next step.
Every published tier's benefits and their cost to deliver, the standing reference a signed agreement attaches to.
A recognition delivery checklist against what was promised, an impact cadence by tier, and one named staff owner.
Every corporate and foundation prospect tracked together, with the specific fact, a CSR pillar or funding guideline, behind its fit.
Prices every prospect's actual deal, tier or custom, the same way, so a negative-margin package is caught before signature.
Term dates and a 90-day renewal outreach date per partner, plus a decision date for anything still under review.
Existing partnership tiers if any, and whatever prospects are already in motion: a current sponsor, a referral, a stated CSR or funding priority.
Every comped seat, printed placement, and hour of staff time gets a real per-unit cost, whether it belongs to a published tier or a one-off negotiation.
A tier or custom package only gets proposed once its net margin is confirmed positive, so a number never gets quoted before its true cost is known.
Once signed, the recognition checklist and reporting cadence keep the relationship active between asks, and the renewal calendar re-checks costs before next year's price is quoted.
Anything the partner receives because of the sponsorship: a comped seat, a printed placement, a rented prop, or staff time spent administering the benefit. If Greenhollow is paying for it or spending staff hours on it, it has a cost, whether or not a separate invoice names that cost.
No, and the difference matters. The IRS's own qualified sponsorship payment rule asks what a benefit is worth to the sponsor, its fair market value, once that value exceeds 2% of the payment. Benefit Costing asks what it costs Greenhollow to produce. Track both; they answer different questions for different sides of the same agreement.
Yes. FASB's own guidance on nonprofit revenue recognition states the test for whether a payment is an exchange or a contribution turns on commensurate value, and applies identically whether the funder is a corporation or a foundation. This pack tracks both in one register for the same reason.
It gets renegotiated before signature, not after. Palisade Media Group's package, as first discussed, costs more to deliver than it pays. The fix is dropping or repricing specific line items, the backdrop rental or the comped table, until the net clears zero, not accepting the loss for the relationship's sake.
Because the same tiers and the same costing logic apply to both. A foundation's gift still funds a comped webpage mention or gala seats if that is the tier it matches. The fit rationale differs, a funding guideline instead of a CSR pillar, but the benefit and its cost do not.
It opens this pack as your own private space and builds the Benefit and Recognition Schedule first, using your organization's real tier prices and costs, before drafting a single proposal. Nothing is generic. Every figure is either yours or explicitly marked as a placeholder to fill in.
Word documents (.docx) for the Partnership Proposal, Benefit and Recognition Schedule, and Stewardship Plan, and spreadsheets (.csv) for all three sheets. Both formats open natively in Word, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers, or Sheets, with no conversion needed before you start filling them in.
Written by
Co-founder & CEO, River
Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.
Send your tiers or your first prospect. The first thing back is a real cost for every benefit, so the price you quote nets what it should.
Price my sponsorship