CREATE AGREEMENTS · CHECKLIST

Sponsorship Agreement Checklist for Schools

A sponsorship package describes an offer. The accepted Agreement records the particular commitment between your School and a sponsor. Before work starts, someone should be able to answer: what was agreed, for which term, who will deliver it, and what will show that it happened?

Use this checklist to prepare that handoff. It is an operational planning resource, not a contract, legal advice or certification. Use your School's approved agreement and review process for the actual terms.

1. Identify the commitment

• Record the correct School and sponsor names, the relationship owner and the contacts responsible for decisions.
• Identify who can approve the School's offer and who can accept for each party under the applicable process.
• Record the package name, version and any negotiated differences. Keep an original reference rather than relying on the current package description alone.
• State the term and the dates or events covered. Identify anything whose timing still needs agreement.
• Record the agreed amount, payment schedule and the business-office reference. Keep payment status distinct from accepted terms and delivered benefits.
• Mark the current stage accurately: draft, proposed, awaiting acceptance, accepted, or changed through the agreed process. Identify the acceptance record, date and accepted version when they exist.

An enthusiastic reply, an internal approval or a prepared document may be useful progress. Do not label it an accepted Agreement without the acceptance record required by your School's process.

2. Make each benefit deliverable

• Describe each benefit specifically enough for someone else to carry it out: placement, format, event or activity, and any material limitations.
• Give each benefit a quantity and unit. “Two social recognition posts” is more useful for operations than “social recognition.”
• Check whether the School can supply the promised space, time and staff capacity, including any conflicts with other commitments.
• Assign a delivery owner and date or trigger. Record dependencies such as receiving artwork or confirming an event date.
• Identify required sponsor materials, their due dates, and the School review needed before use.
• Define what supporting Evidence should show for each benefit. One image may support a particular delivery claim without proving every promised unit.
• Identify an authorized reviewer different from the person submitting or recording the work if it is to be described as independently verified. If no such reviewer is assigned, preserve the pending or unverified state.

Use your School's existing approval process for permitted sponsor categories, marks, images, event access and other restricted materials. Flag an unresolved permission for the appropriate reviewer rather than treating a checklist tick as permission.

3. Agree how changes and exceptions are handled

• Identify who receives questions and who approves a change to scope, timing or materials.
• Record how a proposed change becomes accepted. Retain the prior terms, decision, date and updated version.
• Identify how missed, postponed or unavailable benefits will be raised for a decision. Do not silently substitute a different benefit.
• Separate proposed alternatives from accepted changes; identify outstanding decisions and their owners.
• Record the reporting audience, expected review dates and any agreed reporting requirements.
• Define any intended response measurement and its limits. Delivered work, tracked response and sponsor business outcomes are different records.
• Identify how the next-term decision will be made. A renewal discussion is not a renewed Agreement.

4. Hand off accepted terms to the delivery team

• Link the accepted version to the work plan and use a stable reference for each obligation.
• Have delivery owners check quantities, dates, materials and proof expectations before work begins.
• Keep the agreement reference, delivery record, Evidence and review decisions together in your chosen system.
• Identify missing information explicitly as unknown or awaiting confirmation.
• Assign an owner and next review date to every unresolved item.

The checklist can be complete while a commercial decision remains open. “Ready for review” and “accepted” should remain separate labels.

Use the Agreement handoff worksheet

Record the Agreement reference, accepted terms, benefit quantities, delivery owners, Evidence expectations and unresolved decisions. Download the PDF or editable Word worksheet to complete the handoff in your School's approved systems.

Blank fields mean not yet recorded, not approved. Use internal references for private records; no public upload is needed.

Fictional worked example — deliberately incomplete

Teaching example, not a customer record or a model contract. The VarsityProof demonstration uses Oak Creek High School, Apex Local Automotive and the Maroon & Gold Elite Package. Its accepted package calls for five units across three benefits. The operational fields below illustrate what a team still needs to record; missing dates and people have not been invented.

Agreement state: accepted in the fictional demonstration. Worksheet acceptance reference: [link to the School's accepted version]. Term dates, approver identities and change-approval reference: [copy from that record; not supplied here].

This example shows why an accepted Agreement still needs an operational handoff. The three benefit names and their quantities do not identify every person, deadline or review decision. Completing those fields does not rewrite the agreed scope.

See accepted terms connected to delivery

You can use this checklist in your existing documents without creating an account.