By Daniel Moore
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Amber Stradford has created an online platform called “Endorsevent” which attempts to match sponsors to events that are flying under the radar, and vice versa. Event organizers can create a profile that details their needs. Companies can then find an event themselves, or they can have one of Endorsevent’s three staff members screen events and organizations for the best fit.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
After founding the Washington, D.C., chapter of Girl Develop It, a group that encourages women to learn Web development, Amber Stradford wanted to celebrate and get the word out. But she ran into a frustrating truth: Most events rely on hard-to-get sponsorship dollars to pay for entertainment, marketing venue space, and to provide key services like catering.
On the other hand, evaluating sponsorship opportunities is a surprisingly exhausting task behind the scenes at companies and brands of all sizes. Larger companies tend to sponsor a few large events each year and ignore all others, while small to midsize companies rarely have the resources to scour through the multitude of possible events to connect with the right audience.
That disconnect led Ms. Stradford, who floated among working tech startups, to launch her own. Now in Pittsburgh, working in Alpha Lab’s East Liberty offices, her Endorsevent online platform attempts to match sponsors to events that are flying under the radar, and vice versa.
“Events that are not well known or of a certain size threshold in the tens of thousands, at a minimum, rarely have a place to turn,” she said. “Our platform helps small to midsized brands understand the power of event sponsorship as a means of affordably reaching their local audience.”
Event organizers can create a profile that details their needs. Companies can then find an event themselves, or they can — as Ms. Stradford said larger brands like to do — have one of Endorsevent’s three staff members screen events and organizations for the best fit.
By sponsoring a greater number of smaller events, she said, larger brands can reach the same audience without competing with other brands to sponsor a mega-event.
Plus, they “get the added bonus of knowing they helped organizations that otherwise may have had a hard time getting funding,” she said.
As of mid-March, there were more than 200 screened and listed events on the site, and 50 registered brands, she said.
