What builds deep sponsorships?

On has been making big moves in the footwear and active lifestyle space and it's no surprise when you see their attention to quality and impact. Their social impact program 'Right to Run' is providing access to activity and democratizing movement around the world. Working around the world, they are using the power of sport to positively impact communities and individuals to be their best selves through movement.

A partnership with our players in Cameroon was an easy choice and the team at On was just as pumped about it as we were!

I wanted to share some of what this collaboration means to us along with some key points that we have noticed makes a good partnership in sport.

Creating a professional environment

We do our best to create professional environments for our players, teams, staff and communities. Equipping them with quality equipment, schedules, treatment and service. This gives us guidelines and goals to shoot for.

• Want to see higher standards? Give it to get it. Treat others with respect and professionalism if you want to be treated that way yourself.
• Preparation: Many of our players and staff will move on to higher level teams, clubs, schools and careers. Our goal is to prepare them for this next step through us modeling and expecting professionlism.
• Catalyst: Sometimes you just need that little push or interaction to unlock the next level of your potential. By providing equipment from On this is one more example we give to our players that we believe in them - which helps them believe in themselves.

Snap back to reality moment:

Many of our players have been physically and verbally abused, mistreated and overlooked. Players from our past member clubs representing the Cameroon Women's National team were not provided boots and they come back to ask us for these basic sporting needs. Going unpaid for seasons as a professional female player, overlooked and taken advantage of is sadly the norm.

With this baseline of mistreatment we know it's even more important to talk about our systems, professionlism and to elevate these female leaders to the top.

Hopefully this helps give some context to how important partnerships like this are.

Petrichor Football Association leadership

Our staff model this environment and are creating a new movement in Cameroon.

The entire organization works hard each day to create safe and professional spaces for girls to play football. This collaboration has helped deliver on principles of self confidence and dignity.

Our players have difficult lives each day and just getting to the field represents a lot of hard work. Helping clean the home, get siblings to school, taking care of chores, getting to and from school themselves, homework, work then often a long taxi ride to training and back...It's a long day.

But they do it multiple days a week. And when they are with us we create an environment of safety, fun and professionlism. Wearing the matching game day warm up kit from On shows that we respect them and care about their journey of learning to be more confident in themselves. What shirt you are wearing itself is not the make or break in how confident you are but it definitely helps to provide top quality gear that makes you feel good. On did this for us.

When you look good you feel good. When you feel good you play good.

What makes a good partnership?

This is a big topic with too much to cover here but here are a few of our key takeaways from this collaboration with On and similar partnerships.

1. Aligned Values: Notice we rarely talk about the gear itself?

• What matters most is the values and how partnerships drive these. The values of confidence, leaderships, professionalism, safety...these are the key points to our work. Football, collaborations, partnerships and sponsors matter in this but if it doesn't help drive the values home it won't last.

2. Tell a story: Communicating the values clearly and in a compelling way is the hard (but essential) part.

• Identify what brings us together and what makes our common 'human' emotion helps us see what really matters.
• Focus the narrative or message around these common connectors.
• Include the audience. Bring viewers into the story so they feel like it's their story too (essentially it mirrors their own experience in concepts of connection, family, dignity that we all deal with).
• Integrate the brand. Show how the product, service or collaboration is driving these shared values deeper (cue sponsorship line sheet and bring in brands that can help push this forward - making them look great and helps you reach goals!). We're waiting for you Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment Dove and 联合利华 .

3. Impact: Does the collaboration land well? Is it actually helping, or solving a problem?

• Measure, report, improve, repeat.
• We're getting better at this each year through our partnership with LaLiga and the girls league : La Ligue D'égalité.
• Identify motivations to understand long term partnership goals.

Thanks to the entire team at On and especially Jordan Farwell and Ana Alarcón who helped make this a reality. These may seem like small projects but it is making a big difference at pivotal times in the lives of our players.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by all the difficult news around the world and do nothing but we all have the potential to create positive change today.