# types of sponsors *Article written by FUND-IT team* > Try to contact people who are really fans of your city. Those are the correct ones that will support your idea. *— Bremerhaven team* Within the network, many different parties helped in sponsoring USE-IT projects: ## Municipalities Most USE-IT projects are funded by the municipality of their city. Sometimes there are open calls for projects, issued by the municipality or organisations affiliated to the municipality. Sometimes there aren’t and you have to find the right person within the municipality yourself. This is a bit more complicated of course, but definitely doable! You can think of people who are working in tourism, city marketing, youth work, or culture, for example. It is always good to try the municipality first, before you look for additional funders. They are often the funders with the best resources and also the most contacts to help you along. ## Tourism organisations *ex: tourist info points, city stores, city promoters, city tour organisations, other map projects, etc.* For example, the Barcelona, Spanish map was supported by Barcelona Tourism, Barcelona City Hall, and the Barcelona department for Youth. We also suggest you to reach a tourism organisation at a national level. ## Youth centres USE-IT is a youth project, we aim our maps at young people. It is also a great opportunity for young people to gain work experience in tourism, writing, graphic design, fundraising and all kinds of other work that comes with working on our maps. Because of that, youth centres might help out with money, team members, opportunities for events and distribution possibilities. ## Universities If there is a university in your city, it might be good to contact it. Universities and other higher education institutions often have internationalisation offices and international student associations. They might be able to sponsor you, because they might want to give maps to their incoming international students. ## Regional bodies They also have missions and budget in sectors where USE-IT could be a solution. USE-IT in Belgium has prospered during several years thanks to regional money, because they had multiple cities in the region. Regional money has also helped Kutna Hora (CZ). ## The European Commission There are options for European money. First of all, the Solidarity Projects, financed through the European Solidarity Corps. In their programme guide for 2023, you can find: > Participation in a Solidarity Project will also be an important non-formal learning experience for young people. It should foster a sense of initiative, active European citizenship and entrepreneurial spirit. In particular, young people managing the project could absorb in practice the concept of social entrepreneurship by creating new products or services that benefit the local community or society in general and address important societal challenges.\ > \ > By putting their own ideas into practice, meeting unexpected situations and finding solutions for them, trying out innovative and creative measures, young people will learn new skills and develop their capacities, express their own creativity and take responsibility for their action. They will boost their self-esteem, autonomy and motivation to learn. As you can see, this is a very fitting thing for USE-IT. In the network, a few teams ran successful European Solidarity Corps: Viterbo, Prague, Nijmegen, Arnhem, Oulu. {% embed url="" %} USE-IT Mons in Belgium and USE-IT Oulu in Finland have been funded thanks to European City of Culture status. So it means that you can do it and that you can ask them questions ! Another option is a small-scale partnership, financed through Erasmus+. In their programme guide, it says: > Small-scale Partnerships are designed to widen access to the programme to small-scale actors and individuals who are hard to reach in the fields of school education, adult education, vocational education and training, youth and sport. With lower grant amounts awarded to organisations, shorter duration and simpler administrative requirements compared to the Cooperation Partnerships, this action aims at reaching out to grassroots organisations, less experienced organisations and newcomers to the Programme, reducing entry barriers to the programme for organisations with smaller organisational capacity. This action will also support flexible formats – mixing activities with transnational and national character although with a European dimension – allowing organisations to have more means to reach out to people with fewer opportunities. Small-scale Partnerships can also contribute to the creation and development of transnational networks and to fostering synergies with, and between, local, regional, national and international policies. Small scale partnerships and the bigger ones (Cooperation Partnerships) were successfully ran by a partnership of USE-IT cities, but it never aimed at publishing a map itself. However, if you want to apply to those projects, feel free to ask advice to the Editor-in-chief or the Board of USE-IT Europe. ## Hotels & B\&Bs They will benefit greatly from your map, and might need a map to give to their guests when they check in. In fact, this is how our Editor-in-Chief has found USE-IT, in Prague. So it works! These organisations might be interested in helping you reach your goal. The USE-IT Dresden manager worked in a hostel so the benefit of the USE-IT project was obvious for him. ## Crowdfunding or small-scale sponsors You can try crowdfunding or smaller-scale sponsoring from organisations that might be on your map. This is a bit of a tricky one, because we don’t sell spots on the map. So this means that organisations that you ask to sponsor you, might not end up on the map. It is hard, but it has been done! Ostrava, Nantes and Bordeaux are cities who could fund part of their project thanks to crowdfunding money! {% embed url="" %} {% hint style="success" %} *READ MORE*\ → [Collect small donations](https://use-it.travel/fund-it/art5-donations), a blog article by FUND-IT team {% endhint %} ## Private sponsoring Can a telephone company or a bank fund a USE-IT map? Yes, but only if they agree to stay out of the content and design and they will not get involved in the decisions you make with your map. USE-IT is non-commercial, so there’s no branding or money-making involved for them. On top of that, be mindful about the kind of organisation that fits our sustainable-travel goals. However, there are banks that provide funding for community projects, and that can be a great resource. Email if you have questions about what all this means. Read more : FUND-IT blog article : ESG for Environmental, Social and Governance (external link) *READ MORE*\ → [ESG for Environmental, Social and Governance](https://use-it.travel/fund-it/art6-esg), a blog article by FUND-IT team ## Non-financial support You need money, because you need to pay your designer, printer, membership fee, postal prints and hopefully yourself. However, secondly, think of the importance of non-financial support as well. Organisations can help you with meeting rooms, contacts, distribution support, information, team members, and anything else you might need from them. So keep an open mind, show your enthusiasm for the project and see how you can help each other! In addition to those tips, please have a look at our tutorial. It’ll provide methods to start from 0 and teach you how to map your “sponsors community” *** FUND-IT team lead a research on how USE-IT project - succesfull or not - were funded with the last 20 years. Check how cities from your region, country or of the same size as yours fund their local initiative: {% embed url="" %} *** {% hint style="success" %} *EXPLORE OUR RESOURCES*\ → [The Perfect Funder Guidebook](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nwlgKDN6e0ojqbFbRzFVpTVmiZIdTaOe) by FUND-IT team\ → [The FUND-IT research conclusions](https://use-it.travel/fund-it/research) by FUND-IT team\ → [How to find sponsors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9wqb9AgiLo\&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fuse-it.travel%2F\&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY), a video by FUND-IT team {% endhint %} --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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