Question by sly: Sponsorship for a School Library Website… approx 1600 Pupils in school? I am in 6th form (Year 12) and I have made a website for my school library (Blackburn, Lancashire). What is the easiest way to get sponsorship from firms like WHSmiths and Stationary Box in return for a page of their adverts etc on the site? What I want is for them to sponsor the website by paying a part of the costs. Does anyone know if they do such sponsorships? If not what other ways can i actually get someone to help with paying for it? ( Can;t do Google AdSense cos the school server will block it ) The website address is www.stwilfridlrc.co.nr The Library is inside the school. There are approx. 1600 pupils in the school and the site will be linked to the main school website aswell as the school intranet so most pupils will visit it daily. Any help appreciated, Thanks Ben I have asked at local firms around the school but some of the firms will not be allowed to advertise as our school has joined this “healthy eating” campaign. And most of the shops outside the school are Fast Food /”Junk Food” selling shops. However there is a WHSmiths and Stationery Box as well as other big firms about 5 mins away from the library. What will persuade them to sponsor part of the website if not all of it. What do you think will be the most attractive incentive for offering a sponsorship? Best answer:

Answer by Louise
Hi, Firstly, shouldn’t the LEA be paying for this? If you are setting this up for the school, it should be through the school where the LEA meets the costs (e.g. domain name and hosting). The problem with sponsorship with companies is that what they want is money. Sadly, it may seem that companies may only want to display ad’s on your site if you can prove the amount of traffic that you generate (as traffic means customers, clicks and money!). There are companies that allow affliate schemes, where you display their ad’s and you earn money (although generally a small amount of money) if someone buys one of their products after clicking through from your site. It therefore may be worth finding out if companies offer an affliate scheme. However, I go back to my first point, if this is for and by the school, the LEA should be meeting the general running costs (unless I guess you have purchased expensive software). The day-to-day running costs of a website are now minimal (I’m talking about hosting and domain). As a side note, I also thought that Stationery Box went bust?!

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