1) Define a Concise and Explicit Goal

Before you start knocking on doors, there are a few preparatory steps that you'll need to follow to ensure your efforts aren't wasted. One of these measures is to come up with a concise goal. Without a goal, your project lacks vision. A lack of vision is often accompanied by a lack of funding. Sponsors/Investors are looking for a clear project goal to ensure that you're not going to spend their money on the most expensive components just because they're paying. So ensure that your project's goal is not too ambiguous nor completely wrapped up in technical jargon. For example:

"Our 4 month goal is to integrate an entire cellular telephone into one microchip" - Good

"Our 4 month goal is to implement in .18mm Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor integrated circuit technology, the photolithography, sputtering, and doping processes that will lead us to the mask layout of the micro-electronics components necessary to micro-machine a cellular digital packet transfer radio module." - Bad!!!

Your goal should be to capture your sponsor's imagination... not to intimidate - or even bore - potential investors to sleep with excessive technical details. So once again: Define a concise goal and describe it in plain English.

How do you sell someone on a product that doesn't even exist yet? Let alone the fact that you're not even sure yourself that it's going to work? Well, it's not easy. But pretty pictures and graphs definitely help. Try to use real pictures as much as possible. Block diagrams tend to be on the boring side and it's difficult to inspire with simple words in blocks. You can try producing an user interface early. This will actually help your project when it comes closer to crunch time. For example:

"The final product will look similar to the picture shown here. The interface gives the user the same functionality of the original cellular phone, but notice how the casing size is reduced with the incorporation of the cell phone microchip." - Good

"The final product will look really good... but we're not really sure what it will look like. It really depends on how much time we find on the last day before the due date." - Bad

3) Approach with Caution

You've done your preparation, you've found a source, now it's time for you to go in for the final approach. You have several options in doing this. E-mail and cold calling are a good way to start, but sometimes nothing can beat a face-to-face meeting. If you're planning on approaching a corporate source, the trick is to get yourself an appointment with someone higher in the corporate ladder. The reasoning behind this is simple: An employee who can't help you, won't go out of his/her way to help you. Start at the top, and you'll be delegated accordingly down the ladder. As well, a reference from a higher source carries more weight than a reference from a lower source.

Detective work and persistence pay off. Once you have the name of an Executive, try to find a fax number or personal e-mail address. If the latter are impossible, then try mailing a proposal to the company and requesting an appointment. But be forewarned. Most communication to an Executive is transferred through some kind of Executive assistant. These assistants are trained in filtering out solicitors and that includes us! If you, yourself, are not all that comfortable with giving presentations to Executives or potential sponsors, you can recruit someone who is able to do that into joining your team. I was lucky enough to have worked with such a character, Frederick Ghahramani, for my ENSC 370 project. Aside from all his great technical designing contributions, he was a great presenter. He was so slick and was so convincing that he raised over $500 for our project!!

The number one thing to remember is to not get discouraged or flustered. You're not really asking corporate sponsors for that big of a favor. The amount of money that you're probably asking for is funny money as far as they're concerned. As long as you keep your delivery short and highlight to them what you're offering in return (i.e. Free advertising, future profit shares, etc.), you should be moderately successful. However, be sure to be courteous and positive. Whether you like it or not, your actions could affect how the sponsor views the School of Engineering Science, or SFU as a whole.

Projects cost money. Sponsorship can help reduce that cost. Campaigning for investors takes some effort, and at times can be very discouraging. With all the technical aspects of the approach aside, just be sure to have fun. Even if your campaigning is a failure, it's still a learning experience with little risks involved for you. With a little luck, some creativity, and tenacity, your campaigning can be a success! ...Best of luck!!