You Can Help The LifeSaver Program Find Sponsors

The more sponsors the LifeSaver Program has, the more mothers we can restore to health and dignity. You may be able to help us find more sponsors. We will provide you with the facts of sponsorship below. You can simply print out this page and take it to the appropriate people at your company to see if they are interested. We are looking for established companies who are willing to sponsor for 10 days or more.

About Sponsoring MCI's LifeSaver

The LifeSaver Program is one of the best media buys on the Internet because :

1 ) The average cost to run an advertisement on the Internet is now 3.496 cents per advertising impression (The Boston Globe, July 6, 1999).

The cost to run an advertisement on our Thank You For Your Donation page is less than one third that cost, at 1 cent per advertising impression. (This is for an advertisement that is somewhat smaller than average, but considerably more noticeable.)

2 ) The average click-through rate on the Internet is now approaching one half of one percent. That is, only about 1 person out of 200 clicks on the average banner advertisement.

In contrast, sponsors of the admirable Hunger Site (on which the LifeSaver Program is closely modelled) have consistently received click-through rates of many times that percentage, often 3% and above. The reason, we believe, is that the people who donate here are grateful to the sponsors and are willing to learn more about them.

3 ) In addition to a great price and an outstanding click-through rate, your company will receive two additional benefits that are unique to sponsoring the LifeSaver Program. First, sponsors receive tremendous good will from everyone who comes to the MaterCare LifeSaver page to make a donation. Second, sponsors profit from the publicity surrounding the LifeSaver Program.

4 ) By sponsoring the LifeSaver Program, your company will be making a major contribution in the fight against the forgotten disease, the hidden tragedy, and the conspiracy of silence ... obstetric fistula. Sponsors write a check for 100% of the amount due directly to MaterCare's Birth Trauma Centre Fund. In fact, your company may prefer to look at sponsorship as a form of corporate charity.

More information about the LifeSaver Program may be found on our Frequent Questions and Donations To Date pages.

Each sponsor for the LifeSaver Program pays 1 cent for each donation made at the site. So if there are four sponsors for a day, they will combine to pay 4 cents. If there are five sponsors, they will combine to pay 5 cents, and so on. The cost of 1 cent per donation makes for a cost per thousand donations (CPM) of $10 for each sponsor. Sponsors are sent a billing statement showing the total donations for the days that they have sponsored. They write a check directly to MaterCare's Birth Trauma Centre Fund for the amount that is due.

We are looking for companies who are willing and financially able to sponsor the LifeSaver Program for 10 days or more. We encourage these companies to try a one day test sponsorship to see how cost-effective it can be for them. Based on our current number of 15 to 25 donations per weekday, the total cost to sponsor us for one weekday is currently 15 to 25 cents. Thus the weekly cost to a sponsor would be $1.05 to $1.75 - a negligible amount. (That amount will of course increase as the LifeSaver Programs begins to be more heavily promoted throughout our network of contacts.)

All we need to set you up as a sponsor is your banner advertisement and the URL you want it to link to, usually your home page. Banner advertisements should be 160 x 80 pixels, non-blinking, and in keeping with the tone of the site. We will not run advertisements that the people who come to our site, our other sponsors, would find objectionable.

Suppose that you want to try sponsoring us for one day. First, check with us to make sure that the day you want to sponsor is still open. Then e-mail us the banner ad you want to use or tell us where on the Internet to find it. If you want the banner ad to link to your site, tell us the URL of the site. Now suppose that there are 2,000 donations on the day that you are sponsoring. (The exact number will be posted the next day on our Donations To Date page.) We will then send you a billing statement for 2,000 donations x 1.0 cents = $20. You write a check for that amount and send it to the MCI Birth Trauma Centre Fund, whose address is on the bill. That is all you pay, and that is all there is to it.

Please note that we have also established a limit on the maximum number of donations that you can pay for on any one day unless we receive your permission otherwise. This limit is 150% of the largest day in the last 30 days as listed on our Donations To Date page. For instance, if the largest day in the last 30 days was 2,000 donations, then the most that you can pay for is 3,000 donations. This is to protect you in case there is an unexpectedly large number of donations on the day that you are sponsoring. (This has never happened, as our growth has always been fairly gradual, but we want you to have peace of mind.)

If your company is interested in sponsoring the LifeSaver Program for 10 days or more, please have them contact us at sponsor@matercare.org

Many generous individuals and groups have offered to sponsor the LifeSaver Program. While we appreciate the thought, we think it is best for individuals and groups to make separate donations directly to MaterCare International. In order for the LifeSaver Program and the concept behind it to succeed in the long run, it has to make sense for corporate sponsors to directly fund the restoration of maternal health and dignity through fistula reparative surgery, in return for the good will, publicity, and advertising that they receive. We believe that it does make sense. In fact, it has already proven effective for a number of different companies.

Thank you for your continued support and for whatever you can do to help us find sponsors. We appreciate your help.

The LifeSaver Program