For more than 30 years, The Sponsorship Report has reported on the development and growth of the Canadian sponsorship industry.
The aim of the newsletter is to foster successful partnerships between Canadian corporations and arts groups, sports organizations, charities, government initiatives, events, and festivals. Corporate sponsors and a wide variety of organizations seeking sponsorship look to The Sponsorship Report for current, lively, in-depth coverage of our dynamic industry.
Back in the mid-eighties, Founding Publisher J. Kenneth Scott saw the huge potential of corporate sponsorship of sport, the arts and entertainment, and causes. As general manager, Financial Post Conferences, Scott staged the first conference in Canada on sponsorship, attracting more than 400 delegates. In 1986, he launched The Sponsorship Report.
In 1995 ownership of the publication passed to Barker-Janus Publishing Limited. Publisher and editor, Judith Barker, brought to the publication a solid insight into the success factors for corporate sponsorship in Canada.
In 2000, The Sponsorship Report was acquired by newsletter and directory publisher Database Publishing, led by business journalist Mark Sabourin.
In 2007, The Sponsorship Report became a media partner of Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada, a national association formed in 2004 under the auspices of the Association of Canadian Advertisers to further the development of best practices and accountabilities in the field of sponsorship marketing.
The Sponsorship Report has been instrumental in fostering the growing professionalism in Canada’s sponsorship industry. In the late 1990s, it launched Selling Sponsorships – Strategies for Success®, a day-long seminar for the sponsorship salesperson. In the decade that followed, The Sponsorship Report immeasurably increased the professionalism of Canada’s sponsorship sales force through the staging of this seminar annually in major cities across the country.
In 2004, The Sponsorship Report launched Strategic Sponsorship Marketing: The Canadian Summit®, an annual conference held every fall in Toronto exploring best practices in sponsorship activation.
Over the past several years, other organizations have followed The Sponsorship Report’s lead, offering a wide range of professional development opportunities for Canada’s sponsorship professionals.
In 2009, The Sponsorship Report responded to the growing demands of the marketplace with a relaunched Strategic Sponsorship Marketing: The Canadian Summit®. The conference now offers an unprecedented range of programming options across a two-day professional development experience. It does so while maintaining its cherished status as the sponsorship industry’s most accessible opportunity for professional development.
In 2012, the annual conference was rebranded Sponsorship Toronto.
Sponsorship Toronto is now supported by a series of one-day workshops held at the same venue and during the same week, delivered in partnership with some of Canada’s leading sponsorship experts. Together, Sponsorship Toronto, the Sponsorship Gut Check, the Sponsorship Boot Camp and the Municipal Forum on Sponsorship form SPONSORSHIP WEEK, held every year in November.