For the first time in 12 years, generating non-dues revenue has become the single greatest challenge facing associations. That's not anecdotal — it's the finding from Naylor Association Solutions' annual benchmarking report, and it reflects something that association professionals across the country are feeling firsthand.

It's why we hosted Ed Byers, President of CanRev Collaborative and one of the most experienced non-dues revenue strategists in the Canadian and US association space, for a live workshop on March 4th. Nearly 50 association professionals joined us, and what followed was one of the more honest, practical conversations I've had on this topic. This post captures the most important takeaways.

Watch the full webinar below.

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First, a Reality Check from the Room

Before Ed dove in, we ran a quick poll with attendees. The results were a useful gut check.

Nearly half of respondents said their sponsorship revenue is flat. One in five said it's declining. Only a third are actually growing.

That's not a crisis, but it's a signal. Flat revenue in an environment where event costs are rising and sponsor marketing budgets are shrinking is effectively a slow bleed. The question Ed framed for the session: what separates the third that are growing from everyone else?

His answer had less to do with tactics than with a fundamental shift in how associations think about sponsorship.

The Core Problem: Associations Are Still Selling Inventory

Most association sponsorship programs are built around a familiar structure: a tiered prospectus, logo placements at various price points, a booth at the annual conference, maybe a lanyard or a notebook. Gold, silver, bronze. Repeat annually.

The problem isn't that this model is wrong. It's that it's incomplete, and increasingly, sponsors know it.

As Ed put it: if the primary value you're offering is logo visibility, a sponsor can buy Google Ads for a fraction of the cost and reach a larger audience. The associations that are growing their sponsorship revenue aren't winning on price or inventory. They're winning because they've moved from a transactional mindset to a partnership mindset.

The distinction matters. Selling inventory means you have a menu and sponsors pick from it. Building a partnership means you understand what a sponsor is actually trying to achieve — whether that's qualified leads, brand positioning, access to decision-makers, or something else entirely — and you design the engagement around that.

Ed's framing: "It's not selling. It's delivering value. Here's your audience, here's a match, this is why it makes sense for you to be in this room."

What Sponsors Actually Want (and How to Find Out)

This sounds obvious, but most associations don't ask directly. Ed's practice on every sponsor call is to lead with questions: What's important to you? What would success look like? Is your goal website traffic, speaking time, lead generation, face time with decision-makers?

The reason this matters: if you don't know what a sponsor is optimizing for, you can't demonstrate ROI — and if you can't demonstrate ROI, renewal is a coin flip.

Ed shared an early-career story that stuck with him. A sponsor came up for renewal and asked how many clicks their logo had received on the association website. The number was around 150. They didn't renew. The lesson wasn't that the sponsorship failed — it was that logo clicks were never going to move the needle for that company, and no one had bothered to find out what would before the deal was signed. The conversation that should have happened upfront happened at the worst possible moment: renewal time.

The fix is simple but requires discipline. Ask the question before you close the deal. Build the activation around the answer. Then document it, because you'll need it later.

Events Are a Gateway, Not the Destination

One of the poll's more encouraging findings: 57% of attendees said they already use their events to create year-round sponsor connections.

That's the right instinct, and it deserves more intentional execution.

The associations growing their sponsorship programs aren't treating the annual conference as the product. They're treating it as one touchpoint in a year-round engagement strategy. Think: a sponsored webinar in Q1, a co-branded white paper in Q2, a featured session at the annual conference in Q3, and a sponsored member initiative in Q4. The sponsor isn't buying a booth — they're buying sustained visibility and credibility with your membership for an entire year.

This approach solves several problems at once. It gives sponsors something more compelling than logo placement. It gives your association a reason to charge more. And it gives the sponsor's internal marketing contact something concrete to bring to their boss at budget time: here's what we did, here's what it cost, here's why we're renewing.

That last piece is important. Sponsors don't just need to be convinced — they often need to convince someone above them. A well-structured year-round package is easier to justify internally than a line item that reads "conference booth: $5,000."

The Tactical Stuff: Where to Find More Revenue Without Creating More Work

A lot of the session's Q&A surfaced a common anxiety: attendees felt like they'd already maxed out their sponsorship inventory. Exhibit space is full. The obvious activations are taken. There are only so many lanyards.

Ed pushed back on this framing. A few ideas that generated the most discussion:

Squeeze more from what you already have. If you run a digital scavenger hunt or passport program at your trade show, are you monetizing it fully? Standard booth scans might earn attendees 100 points. Selling a handful of premium spots at 500 points each costs you nothing to deliver and drives measurably more foot traffic to those exhibitors. That's new revenue from something you're already doing.

Rethink the booth model. Several attendees mentioned running out of exhibit space as a challenge. Ed described a pod model — smaller 2x2 footprints that get sponsors out from behind the traditional 8-foot table — that CSAE has used successfully. It's not just a space solution; it's a positioning shift. Sponsors spend less on shipping and setup, which frees up budget they can redirect into activations. And a level playing field across exhibitors can actually improve the attendee experience on the floor.

Sponsored survey. Ed shared a specific example: the Infusion Nurses Society had their post-event survey sponsored for a fee, with the sponsor allowed to include one or two questions in the survey itself. The association was going to run the survey anyway. The sponsor got direct access to member feedback. The association generated incremental revenue from something it was already doing. Low lift, real dollars.

Don't underestimate the prospecting gap. Most associations rely too heavily on repeat sponsors and inbound interest. Ed's challenge to the group: identify 10 companies that aren't currently sponsoring you but should be. Look at who's trying to sell your members. Ask your board who they're buying from. Those are warm leads hiding in plain sight.

The Fulfillment Report: Your Most Underused Renewal Tool

Nobody loves writing fulfillment reports after an event. You're exhausted, you're already thinking about the next thing, and it feels like administrative overhead.

Ed's argument for reframing this: the fulfillment report isn't a thank-you note. It's a renewal tool.

A good fulfillment report does two things. First, it proves you delivered what you promised. Second — and this is the part most associations miss — it gives the sponsor's marketing contact something to bring to their boss when asking for next year's budget. If that person has to go into a meeting and explain why they spent $10,000 on an association sponsorship, a well-constructed report with their specific metrics is the difference between an easy yes and a hard conversation.

Ed's practical approach: build a template with standard event stats (attendance, demographics, check-ins), then customize two or three slides per sponsor to reflect the specific goals they told you about at the start. You're not rebuilding from scratch each time. You're subbing in the relevant data for each relationship.

And once you've sent it, that report becomes the opening of the next sales conversation. What would have made this great instead of good? The answer to that question is next year's package.

The Bigger Picture for Association Leaders

Several participants in the session noted a challenge that isn't really about tactics: they don't have a dedicated person managing sponsorship. It's sitting in the corner of someone else's job description, competing with event logistics, member communications, and everything else.

That's a real constraint, and there's no magic fix for it. But the mindset shift Ed is advocating for actually helps here. When sponsorship is treated as a transactional function — sell the booth, collect the check, fulfill the deliverables — it requires constant active effort. When it's treated as a relationship function, the compounding effect of well-served sponsors who renew, upgrade, and refer others does some of that work for you. The investment is front-loaded. A sponsor you've genuinely served is far easier to renew than a new sponsor you have to convince from scratch.

The associations that are in the growing third aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest teams. They're the ones that have figured out how to make sponsorship feel like a partnership to the people writing the checks.

Ed Byers is the President of CanRev Collaborative, a non-dues revenue and sponsorship consultancy serving associations across Canada and the US. He also runs NonDuesPalooza, an annual gathering of association professionals focused on collaborative approaches to non-dues revenue. Learn more at nonduesapalooza.com.

PheedLoop is an all-in-one event management platform built specifically for associations. If you're thinking about how event technology can support your sponsorship program, we'd love to talk. [Reach out to Mitch directly.]