In 1982, Lesa Ukman founded IEG (sponsorship.com) and built a company that spawned a new industry, one currently worth more than $85 billion. She created the processes to measure what was deemed immeasurable: the fair market value of sports, arts, entertainment and nonprofit sponsorships, now used by the worldwide marketplace.
In May 2016 she launched Lesa Ukman Partnerships, marking the second time in her career that she will bring to market an entirely new algorithm for capturing the value generated by partnerships.
This time, instead of calculating the financial return for the sponsor, the new ProSocial VALUATION Service® (prosocialvaluation.com)
calculates the social capital derived from the relationship and its synergies.
"From the Super Bowl and Manchester United to South by Southwest and the Grammy Awards—sports, events and entertainment have now become catalysts for social progress,” Ukman said.
"Programs can be initiated by rightsholders, talent, sponsors and media partners and take many forms—infrastructure, youth fitness, education, sustainability and much more.
“Uniting teams, brands, fans athletes, artists and other stakeholders around collective action is a powerful cocktail,” she continued. “It goes beyond marketing, cause marketing, sports marketing into the realm of effecting social progress. Now, for the first time, there’s a way to measure the value from the frame of society at large.”
This fills a void. “Communities spend hundreds of millions of dollars to host events and build stadiums. Now, they can make those decisions knowing what they can expect in terms of social return, both near term and longer term legacies. Sponsors can determine where to invest for the biggest impact. And rightsholders will be able to capture and report on the aggregated value of all the programs they are catalysts for. This service is a win for the entire ecosystem,” Ukman said.