How to work with Colleges & Universities

SIY can be a great fit for staff and faculty, and can a wonderful offering for students, especially in business schools and other professional programs. 

 

SIYLI has worked with several colleges and universities, and in a few different ways:

• As a Public Program Partner (revenue share): in this case, the university would provide the venue and marketing support (e.g. mailing out announcements of the program to their lists, publishing it on their event calendars etc.), and in exchange you would share the revenue from the tickets sales with them. This has been really successful for SIYLI when we've partnered with centers/offices within universities that are connected to alum programs or public/community events. 
• As a Public Program Partner (venue for seats): Most of the work that SIYLI has done with universities has been to partner to hold public programs. In these case, we co-host an SIY public program where the university provides the venue, and receives a number of free seats to the program that they can distribute to staff, faculty or students. This can be a great way to work with a university where there isn't much budget, but they have an interest in offering SIY, and it lowers the costs for you of holding a public program. This could also be done as an invite-only program (the relationship with the university would be the same, but you would market the additional tickets directly to up to 1,000 people, and the pricing would be flexible). 
• Client programs for their faculty/staff: the university would sponsor the program and invite faculty/staff to attend. As a teacher, you can offer this pro bono if you'd like. 
• Client programs for students: while we've found it rare that schools are able to put much budget toward student programs, this has worked occasionally for business school students, or could be offered as a pro bono program.  

Some colleges and universities that SIYLI has worked with include: Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Georgetown University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan Ross School of Business.