Don't know if anyone here has been to a lecture given by Ranulph Fiennes. I've been lucky enough to attend two.
There you'll learn how easy it is to get all the sponsorship you need. He explains it in his introduction.
He reveals that when his team first started out on expedition travelling, over thirty years ago, they all agreed on one simple rule:
They would never ever, under any circumstances, in any situation and for any purpose, pay for anything.
They would always persuade, cajole, or otherwise force, other people to pay all the bills or donate their services.

In other words, it comes down to brute determination and single-mindedness.
Everything is possible...... as they say.

No, it's not easy at all, but I wish you the Best of Luck.... and Determination.

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TTR250 - London to Cape Town

Hmm . . .

Seeing as how the OP hasn't responded to any of these suggestions, I'm finding myself doubting the level of commitment there . . .

One thing is for sure: Researching and finding sponsors takes diligence.

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www.overlandjournal.com

Someone more cynical than myself might even think that perhaps it was just a way to get a link to their site on as many different pages as possible so that they go up the Google rankings.

But I'm sure they're just diligently researching.

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I only ever ran sponsorship for a race team (worked for the sponsor), I can suggest some ways to loose a sponsor and have to replace all your stickers, media support, brochures etc.:

1. Take over the sponsors garage for weeks at a time, leaving a huge mess.
2. Steal anything that isn't nailed down in said facility.
3. Argue with the sponsors engineers, rubbish their work, delay their projects.
4. Complain constantly.
5. Crash time and time again, always coming up with excuses.
6. Finally blame your main sponsors product for the worst crash of the lot!

In other words, treat sponsors and potential sponsors like the nice people who are giving things for free, not ****wits who are stupid enough to give you money! The second team who came along wanting money oddly had the same attitude and we weren't talking about guys named Schumacher!

Andy

Some interesting comments posted here. Our trip is low key so I guess I am not able to comment on the "larger" scale corporate contribution angle. Either way our experience has been very positive;

1) If you want something from someone for free - more often than not - it helps if you give something in return for free.
2) The simplest angle is to promote sponsors to friends, fellow overlanders and add a link to your site if you have one - an acknowledgement of what they gave and why is also a good idea. Giving information back such a travel data, GPS, photos is also a good thing to do.
3) Only focus on important things and be dilligent and targetted in how you ask for things. Face to face meetings and personal letters worked well for us and we found people (90%) very helpful. But it takes time and doing blanket mail shots etc....wont work.
4) We only asked for people's time, advice and a few items of kit.....not money.
5) We plan to link to a charity site for a charity in South Africa and will do so via the Just Giving site. People can choose if they want to give to the charity - we personally dont want money for our trip.
6) we might try a local news paper before we go and maybe when we arrive but thats about it

Plenty of suggestions in previous posts, hope your trip works out well!!

Safe travels

Nick

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Langebaan Sunset - Africa Overland
http://langebaan-sunset.blogspot.co.za/

it's interesting that people want a trip paid for. I m not putting down anyone whom raises cash for a good cause. There is a lot of good tips. Whom know next year I m leave till whom know when or where because I just can. Even with 13 grand and a helix scooter that get 65 mpg it would be nice to not have to pay 2 grand out for kit. It would be nice to have a top of the line gear to play it safe. I would like thank all the guys for the info. I have to say that getting gear would be easier then getting cash. tires, etc would be nice to have.