Sponsorship Benefits
VBMA Members are your ideal target market
- National Sponsorship Benefits
- - - National Website
- - - National Meeting
- - - National Programming
VBMA members are the veterinary students that you want to know your company’s name.
What makes VBMA members different than other veterinary students? VBMA students are the vet students who realized that they were not always going to be practicing medicine in a classroom. They realized that having business skills would make them better veterinarians. They are the veterinary students dedicated to pursuing excellence in all facets of veterinary education. Ultimately, we believe these are going to be students leading our profession into the future.
VBMA students are already getting involved in industry-wide change. Through the "Elephant in the Room" discussions both at our national conference and in local chapters they have discussed how to face the challenge of student debt and this impacts the profession now and in the future.
Veterinary students who want to become practice owners are becoming a rare breed but the VBMA is the place to find them. These future business partners and owners are going to be making decisions about what kinds of vaccines, medications, and drugs to carry. They will be asking for a specific appraiser, lender, or lawyer before a practice sale. You want these students to ask for you.
Reaching out to VBMA members is the way to target your sponsorship to business minded veterinary students with an eye on success and leadership in this profession.
There are multiple ways to sponsor the VBMA
VBMA sponsorship happens on the national and on the local level.
National sponsorship gives your company exposure to VBMA members across the country, and also allows you to form connections with select VBMA leadership. As with any investment, the greater the investment, the greater the returns.
By sponsoring us nationally you become connected to the VBMA National Executive Board. Then with ascending levels of sponsorship you have the opportunity to interact more with the 4500 VBMA members across the country through our website, our national meeting, and through national VBMA programs.
The VBMA website is an essential piece of our infrastructure. By allowing members to interact through personalized profiles, blogs, chapter websites, forums, and posting photos, the website is an interactive tool for members. The website is a key way that the National VBMA stays in touch with the pulse of our members.
The VBMA has chapters at all 29 vet schools plus Ross and St. George's as well as several international chapters. Our online community has global reach.
All levels of national sponsorship include website recognition. At the highest levels of sponsorship we also invite our sponsors to become a part of this interactive community.
The VBMA’s annual National Meeting brings together the national executive board, our regional leaders, and VBMA chapter officers from every veterinary school in the country.
Besides the VBMA National Meetings, there is no other opportunity that allows sponsors to reach so many business minded veterinary leaders on such a personal level.
The National Meeting is easily the National VBMA’s greatest endeavor of the financial year. You can read more about the National Meeting on our page dedicated to the subject here. In summary the goals of this meeting are:
- Create engagement and excitement for mission and goals of the NVBMA
- Roll out new NVBMA initiatives and programs
- Identify new VBMA leadership
- Network and bond with VBMA members and sponsors
Sponsorship levels:
Amethyst – Recognition on all National Meeting marketing materials, invitations to our National Meeting events and newsletter recognition.
Sapphire – All above, plus presentation at our sponsor lunch and fullpage in National Meeting manual.
Ruby - All above, full access of the National Meeting and logo on monthly newsletters.
Emerald -- All above, logo on website front page and sponsorship level access to our website promotion of chapter programming
Diamond – Full access to the website including forums, blogs, webinars and video posting
Our chapters are always looking for great resources that they can share with their student members. We partner with our sponsors to help develop student-specific programming that we market directly to our chapters. These programs take a significant amount of the National Board's time to ensure they are setup to be successful; therefore, we reserve programming for our top sponsors. We require that chapters wanting to host a national sponsor program must fill out an application, create marketing material, reserve a room, and have a budget for the meeting before we schedule the program. These requirements allow us to be sure that the chapter is serious about wanting to host the program. We also ask for feedback from the meeting from both the chapter and the sponsor (if present at the meeting). We are always striving to help maximize our sponsor's investment in the VBMA.
Getting involved with the VBMA on a chapter level has a separate process and unique benefits. Many of our sponsors provide sponsorship on both the National and Chapter levels.
While the National VBMA collects sponsorship funds on an annual basis to support our yearly budget, the VBMA chapters tend to solicit funds on a case-by-case basis. Generally chapters will approach sponsors with a funding proposal for a specific presentation they hope to have sponsored. A typical funding proposal will request funds needed based on the speaker’s honorarium, food for the event, and miscellaneous marketing expenses (printing flyers). Benefits for sponsors vary with the school and the event.
Chapter sponsorship allows more localized marketing. If a company wants to strengthen its message to a specific geographic area then chapter sponsorship can be useful. If sponsors are able to visit the school for the event it also gives them the opportunity to meet and network with VBMA members. Some sponsors choose to take advantage of the opportunity to talk with VBMA officers over dinner.
Sponsorship at the local level also allows some flexibility at lower levels of sponsorship that may not be available to sponsors at the national level. For example, we promote national programming for sponsors only at emerald and diamond levels of sponsorship. However sponsors are welcome to create and fund a program in conjunction with a local chapter on whatever terms are reasonable to that chapter. Successful chapter programs that begin at one school may spread to other VBMA chapters.
National and Chapter sponsorship are certainly not mutually exclusive and in fact often complement one another. Many sponsors have used the National Meeting to talk to chapter officers and relate their interest in supporting events at the chapter level.
Check out our links page to connect directly with local chapters.