Summary
The Manager of Sponsorships and Events oversees NOPEC’s portfolio of regional sponsorships, conference investments, sponsored engagements, and regional memberships with an organization-wide, holistic focus. The role centralizes evaluation, prioritization, negotiation, management, and event planning to ensure alignment with NOPEC’s mission, maximize return on investment (ROI), and strengthen external relationships that advance the organizational goals of NOPEC’s 3 principal organizations.
This position establishes a proactive, data-informed process that drives consistency, accountability, and measurable outcomes for high-visibility external engagements. Serving as NOPEC’s primary point of contact for sponsorship investments, the Manager collaborates across departments to coordinate participation, messaging, contract terms, event planning, and evaluate results.
Core Values
- Integrity - Maintains organizational confidence by protecting operational assets and processes. Keeps financial and other organization information confidential.
- Driven Team Player - Demonstrates initiative and strong work ethic while collaborating effectively with colleagues to achieve shared goals.
- Intelligent with Sound Judgement - Applies critical thinking and makes well-informed decisions that support organizational priorities and compliance.
- Confident Leader & Thinker - Owns position on the Team, maintains a high level of productivity and offers feedback to add value to the organization.
- Humble and Flexible - Adapts to changing priorities with a positive attitude, values feedback and willingly and cooperatively takes direction from the Marketing Director and Executive Officers.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Illustrative duties may include, but are not restricted to, one or more of the following:
Evaluation & Planning – 15% of time
- Establish, maintain, and optimize a standardized sponsorship, conference, and regional membership evaluation framework for consistent proposal evaluation, transparency, fiscally responsible decision making, and equitable consideration of opportunities across NOPEC’s departments and footprint.
- Serve as the centralized facilitator for sponsorship, conference, and membership requests and assist in evaluating opportunities using established criteria (mission alignment, audience relevance, cost, educational value, brand exposure, internal resource requirements, and ROI, etc.).
- Identify redundancies, low value opportunities, or misaligned commitments across departments and recommend continuation, consolidation, modification, or discontinuation where appropriate for Leadership Team consideration.
- Maintain a centralized calendar of sponsorships, events, and conferences to enable proactive planning, transparent visibility into commitments, awareness of key deadlines, and year-over-year scheduling of recurring opportunities.
- Observe and report on competing entities in the marketplace (related to sponsorship).
Recommendations & Decision Support – 15% of time
- Provide leadership with clear, data-informed recommendations and analysis regarding conference and sponsorship investments, participation, prioritization, renewal, modification, or decline.
- Ensure optimized participation at regional sponsorships, conferences, sponsored engagements, and regional memberships. Work to position NOPEC as a credible and trusted industry expert and align investment recommendations with organizational priorities.
Contract Negotiation & Value Management – 15% of time
- Lead evaluation and negotiation of sponsorship agreements (financial terms, deliverables, and benefits) to maximize value and ensure fiscally responsible stewardship of NOPEC resources; assess when pricing is fixed versus negotiable and secure reduced costs, enhanced benefits or added value where flexibility exists.
- Manage end-to-end administration, including internal routing for legal review, departmental leader approval, board approval, and signatures, as well as timelines, payments, renewals, and documentation.
- Monitor fulfillment of deliverables and conduct sponsorship review meetings with internal team members as well as external contracted organizations to debrief performance, provide candid post-sponsorship evaluations, negotiate makegoods when warranted, and course-correct expectations, activation plans, or deliverables as needed.
Regional Sponsorship & Event Oversight – 15% of time
- Oversee NOPEC’s regional sponsorship portfolio to support community awareness, sustainability, and educational outreach while increasing positive brand recognition across NOPEC’s footprint.
- Ensure regional sponsorship components balance brand exposure with meaningful educational components that support NOPEC’s education pillar and positively influence public awareness and perception of NOPEC.
- Lead renewal evaluations and negotiations for recurring regional sponsorships to ensure continued alignment and value.
Agency-Wide Event Planning – 15% of time
- Work throughout the agency to coordinate, ideate, develop staffing plan, and implement all agency sponsored events.
- Work with appropriate department leaders to plan and procure marketing materials, give-a-way items, etc.
- Calendarize and inform entire organization of time and support needs for such engagements.
- Work to align all such engagements with NOPEC missionality and marketing protocols to insure brand consistency and messaging across all investments.
Cross-Functional Collaboration – 15% of time
- Partner with internal teams (e.g., marketing/communications, relationship management, economic development, and other departments) and external partner communications teams to align messaging, maximize visibility and brand impact, and ensure timely internal updates on pipeline status, commitments, and outcomes.
- Coordinate with internal staff involved in events, conferences, and speaking engagements to align expectations, planning, logistics, execution, staffing needs, and follow-up.
- Convene and facilitate cross-departmental planning meetings to evaluate opportunities, align priorities, and brainstorm sponsorship strategies.
- Serve as an internal subject-matter resource on sponsorship value, expectations, and evaluation standards, with clear next steps and documented decisions.
Performance Measurement & Reporting – 10% of time
- Further refine and track performance metrics for sponsorships, events, conferences, and partnerships; maintain documentation of outcomes and lessons learned to inform future decision-making.
- Conduct post-sponsorship evaluations to assess ROI, educational impact, and brand value.
Other Skillsets & Responsibilities
- Proven ability to coordinate across multiple internal stakeholders and external partners.
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship-management skills.
- Ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines in a complex organizational environment with a high degree of independent judgment.
- Ability to travel throughout the state as needed to attend sponsorship events, partner engagements, and conferences.
- Experience in event planning, budgeting, and logistics planning within B2B or B2C organizations.
Physical Requirements
- Sitting, standing and bending.
- Ability to use office equipment including but not limited to office copier, shredder, computer equipment, audio/visual equipment.
- Ability to speak in a clear and easily comprehensible manner.
- Valid Ohio Driver’s License and proof of automobile insurance at a level established by NOPEC.
Background
- Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, public administration, business, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
- 5+ years of demonstrated experience managing sponsorships, partnerships, events, or external relationships with financial and contractual responsibility.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to evaluate ROI and make data-driven recommendations.
- Experience negotiating contracts, sponsorship terms, and partnership value.
Nice to Have
- Experience working with sponsorship agreements, contracts, or membership-based organizations.
- Familiarity with public-sector, nonprofit, or mission-driven organizations.
- Experience collaborating with marketing, communications, or community outreach teams on sponsorship activation and branding.
NOPEC Mission and Call to Service
- NOPEC is the largest governmental retail aggregation in the United States. We have over 250 member communities throughout northeast Ohio. We exist for the sole purpose of serving our member communities and consumers.
- To fulfill this purpose, we aggregate, educate and advocate, maximizing the value we bring to our members.
- The NOPEC team members who help us fulfill this mission must be confident, thinking leaders who are both humble and flexible. We exist to serve and must be willing to put our shoulders to that service regardless of where, how and when the opportunity for service may present itself. We are driven team players, intelligent with sound judgement, who understand and forward the needs of the people and communities we serve and who roll up our sleeves to work both collectively and individually to live up to and exceed the expectations of the public we serve.
Working Conditions
- Incumbent will work in a hybrid office environment. Incumbent should understand the expectation that this job periodically requires a 40+ hour per week commitment.
- Verification of identity, education, prior employment, and references may be required.
- We are a drug-free workplace, and an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
