A Guide to Engineering Sponsorship – Insights From the VP Finance

The Waterloo Engineering Society runs a Sponsorship Committee every term to allocate a percentage of our student fees back into the hands of the students. Our sponsorship funding is available to any student team or organization to apply and present their proposal. As our sponsorship committee wraps up, I wanted to offer my insight to candidates for funding in future terms. As I’ve had experience twice as a voting member and twice as chair of this committee, I have seen what can make or break a proposal.

We want to know how many engineering students are affected by this sponsorship.  Don’t lie to us. We are much more inclined to sponsor teams with  a large student involvement or we are more inclined to sponsor items that benefit multiple teams as this means our contribution has the greatest impact on the greatest number of students. I’m not saying if you’re a small team not to apply for funding; by all means please do! It is of benefit to your application however, to include the engineering student involvement.

Our committee has historically favoured sponsoring items that have a longevity to them. We like to sponsor things that will survive year after year like tools. We also love to fund safety supplies. We have funded flame retardant suits, gloves, face masks, and all sorts of helmets. Safety First!

Our sponsorship committee historically doesn’t like to fund disposables. We don’t like funding things that benefit small numbers of people like travel to competition, raffle prizes, or swag items for your team. We also don’t like funding student fees or registration fees. Our goal is to bring the most benefit to the most people. We also cannot fund things that have already been purchased.

I want to thank the 7 people, my six committee members, Ben Beelen, Bryn Cummings, Corbin McElhanney, Julia Reinstein, Olivia Baker and Quin Millard, and the off-term VP Operations and Finance, Michael Beauchemin, for sitting with me during the proposals on March 4th this term. I also want to thank the 20 student teams and groups that presented. I encourage all engineering student teams and groups to approach the engineering society in the Spring term and again in the Fall term. I always look forwards to our Sponsorship Committee, as I have been involved with it since my 1A term, and I love seeing the benefit we can bring to our student groups outside of the Engineering Society.