Sponsors provide key support for our organization to fund travel, lodging, registration, and bandwidth expenses for our presenters, attendees, and volunteers coordinating our event, including guaranteeing travel and registration for at least one author of each submission to the conference. In 2021, approximately 95% of our event costs were associated with these expenses, with the remaining 5% used for online event hosting, translation, and captioning services.
This year, we have updated our sponsorship policy to reduce our sponsors to two tiers: major sponsors and supporting sponsors. The expected sponsorship fee associated with each tier is now determined as a function of the size of the company based on reported number of employees.
Determining Sponsors
Our primary list of proposed sponsors is determined every year by combining the list of sponsors from the previous years with sponsors nominated by board members or workshop organizers. If multiple board members or organizers are concerned about a sponsor on that list, that sponsor is put forward for discussion by the board and chairs. Ultimately, the organizers for that year vote on whether to remove that sponsor from consideration, with a majority consensus required of organizers required to reject a particular sponsor.
The sponsor selection process is carried out at least five months prior to the workshop. If an opportunity arises later to connect with a sponsor not on the selected list, they may be added by consulting the chairs and board members and verifying there are no objections. If any board member or chair objects, then the sponsor will not be considered until the following year.
Sponsorship Tiers
We have moved to a tier structure that factors in the size of for-profit organizations (based on number of employees) to determine the amount of funds for a sponsor to be a major versus a supporting sponsor. We summarize the contribution amounts and benefits below.
| Small (<500 employees) | Mid (500-5000) | Large (5000+) | Non-profit (any size) | |
| Major Sponsor | $5,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 | $5,000 |
| Supporting Sponsor | $2,500 | $5,000 | $10,000 | $2,500 or in-kind support |
Major Sponsor:
- Large logo and hyperlink on the website, large logo in proceedings, large logo in pause screen between presentations and sessions
- 3 company representatives at networking and mentorship lunch
- A list of participants who have opted in to share contact information, for networking/job search purposes
- Acknowledgement at the beginning and end of the workshop
- Individual exhibition/recruiting table
Supporting Sponsor:
- Medium logo and hyperlink on the website, small logo in proceedings
- 1 company representative at networking and mentorship lunch
- A list of participants who have opted in to share contact information, for networking/job search purposes
- Acknowledgement at the beginning and end of the workshop
- Individual exhibition/recruiting table
Note: the networking and mentorship lunch will be an opportunity for company representatives/recruiters to mingle with workshop participants and speakers in a casual environment. More details will be communicated at a later date.
Additional sponsor options
In-kind sponsorship
Both in the past and moving forward, we are happy to accept other types of donations as forms of material support from our sponsors. Sponsors providing support through these channels who are not otherwise marked in one of the financial tiers above will be listed as “In Kind Sponsors” on our materials and are eligible to receive the following benefits:
- Small logo and hyperlink on the website, small logo in proceedings
- A list of participants who have opted in to share contact information, for networking/job search purposes
- Acknowledgement at the beginning and end of the workshop
Some examples of ways that sponsors have or can support WiNLP include:
- Helping to front costs or book flights directly for a small number of attendees, as they often cannot afford to wait for reimbursement.
- Lending laptops and other hardware so that authors who are unable to attain visas or travel can still present their work virtually, through the screen.
- Offering books as “best paper” prizes.
- Offering free software codes for technologies that help with research tasks (e.g., cloud computing or writing).
- Arranging for (human) live transcription or translation for accessibility.
- Offering legal visa assistance for authors needing to navigate travel visa requirements.
- Sponsored sub-events or activities at or associated with a WiNLP-hosted event, such as a sponsored lunch for participants, or a sponsor-led tutorial session.
Notices of sponsorship limitations
Our events often include invited researchers as speakers, including those who are part of our sponsoring organizations. However, we treat our selection of these speakers as independent of our selection of sponsors. We generally do not solicit lists of suggested speakers from companies and expect that speakers from sponsor companies will primarily direct their talk to their own work and lived experiences instead of recruitment efforts.
We have recently developed a sponsorship selection process that allows our board members and chairs to weigh in about prospective sponsors and offer concerns, culminating in an opportunity for current chairs to vote on sponsors. To remove a sponsor from consideration requires a two-thirds majority of chairs to vote against them as a sponsor. Sponsors who receive this invitation have already been approved by this process for 2022.
While we are happy to share these sub-events that are in conjunction with EMNLP 2022 or Widening NLP 2022 with our attendees, we will include a disclaimer on our website and advertisements for such events with the following:
Widening NLP does not endorse the sponsors of our workshop as employers, nor do we endorse the views they express or the products/services they offer. We are grateful for their sponsorship of our programs and we encourage our participants to do their own research into these organizations.
If you are interested in being a sponsor and have not heard from Widening NLP previously, please reach out to us at winlp-chairs@googlegroups.com. We look forward to hearing from you.