Sponsorship is any money or other property (items, goods or services) provided to you to help, or which must reasonably be assumed to help, meet costs in connection with:
any conference, meeting or other event (including digital conferences or events)
the preparation, production, or distribution of a publication (print or digital), or
Sponsorship may include transfers of money or property to you on commercial terms. Even if you and the sponsor view this as a commercial arrangement, sponsorship is a type of donation. The same permissibility and reporting requirements apply to donations received as sponsorship as with other donations.
Sponsorship is regulated because it has a similar effect as other types of donations. For both sponsorship and other types of donations, the law provides transparency on financial benefits provided to you.
When does a payment help meet costs?
In most cases, a payment made in connection with an event, publication or research may reasonably be assumed to be to help meet its costs. If one of the purposes of the payment was to help you meet these costs, or must reasonably be assumed to be to help you meet these costs, this is sponsorship.
It is important to consider how a reasonable person would see the payment and whether they would think one of the purposes of the payment is to help you meet these costs.
A payment does not have to be used to meet costs directly to count as sponsorship.
Valuing sponsorship
The value of the sponsorship is the full amount of the payment received from the sponsor. You must not make any deductions for any potential benefit to the sponsor or where the actual costs of the event, publication, study or research are less than the amount received from the sponsor.2
1. Schedule 2, rule 1(29) The Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) Order 2017 (CAM Order 2017) and Schedule 2A, paragraph 3(1) Representation of the People Act 1983 (RPA 1983)↩ Back to content at footnote 1