Every sponsorship opportunity can include benefits that every sponsor receives when they buy it. You can also offer optional benefit groups, where sponsors choose from a set of benefits. This article explains how to add, expire, limit, and charge for both kinds of benefits while you create or edit an opportunity.
What It Controls
- Included benefits go to every buyer of the opportunity, in the quantity you set.
- Optional benefit groups let a sponsor choose from a named set of benefits, within the minimum and maximum you set.
- Any benefit, whether included or optional, can expire and can show a capacity so you can see how many remain.
- An optional benefit can also have an extra charge, billed through an add-on product, with an optional separate charge for members.
Where to Find It
You configure benefits and optional benefit groups on the opportunity itself. Use the Included Benefits and Optional Benefit Groups sections while you create or edit a sponsorship opportunity.
Prerequisites
You need the permission your administrator grants for opportunity setup.
Add an Included Benefit
- While creating or editing an opportunity, go to the Included Benefits section and select Add Benefit.
- Enter a Name: and choose a Type:, such as Exhibit Booth, Job Posting, Advertising, or Custom. These types categorize the benefit but do not change how it works.
- Enter the Quantity: the sponsor receives with each purchase. The default is 1.
- Choose whether the benefit expires: None, a Specific Date, or a Relative Date counted from the sponsorship's purchase.
- Optionally, set a Capacity: for the total number of this benefit that can be handed out across every sponsor. Leave it blank for an unlimited benefit.
- Select Save Changes on the dialog to add the benefit to the opportunity's list.
Warning
If you choose Relative Date, the control starts set to expire on the purchase date, with no days, weeks, or months added. To make the benefit expire after purchase, change the position to after, then enter a number and a unit of time. Otherwise, the benefit is set to expire immediately.
Warning
Capacity is informational only. Staff and sponsors can still sell or choose a benefit after it reaches the stated capacity. Use the number shown as a guide to what is still available, and watch closely as you approach a limited benefit's capacity.
Offer a Group of Optional Benefits
- While creating or editing an opportunity, go to the Optional Benefit Groups section and select Add Optional Benefit Group.
- Enter a Name for the group. This is the heading the sponsor sees over the choices.
- Set Minimum Selections: for the fewest choices the sponsor must make, and Maximum Selections: for the most. A Maximum Selections: of 1 shows radio buttons, so the sponsor can choose only one benefit from the group. A maximum greater than 1 shows checkboxes, so the sponsor can choose more than one.
- Optionally, enter a Description for the text the sponsor sees beside the group's choices. This description is rendered as HTML, so avoid typing anything you do not want interpreted as markup.
- Select Add Benefit to add at least one benefit to the group, using the same benefit dialog as included benefits.
- Select Save Changes on the opportunity once every group has at least one benefit.
Warning
A group must have at least one benefit before you can save the opportunity. The group panel lets you leave a group empty temporarily, but the opportunity will not save until every group has at least one benefit.
Rhythm does not check that Maximum Selections: is at least as large as Minimum Selections:. Double-check these two numbers yourself, because a group with a minimum higher than its maximum will save without warning.
Charge Extra for an Optional Benefit
- While adding or editing a benefit inside an optional group, check This benefit has an additional cost.
- Choose the Add On Product: that bills the charge. At least one add-on product must already exist.
- Enter the Additional Cost, which is the amount a non-member sponsor pays for choosing this benefit.
- Optionally, enter Additional Cost for Members if members should pay a different amount. Leave it blank for members to pay the same as everyone else.
- Select Save Changes.
Warning
You can enter a separate Additional Cost for Members, but Rhythm does not currently use it at checkout. Every sponsor who chooses the benefit pays the standard Additional Cost, whether or not they are a member. Do not rely on this field to discount or adjust member pricing today.
After you check This benefit has an additional cost, both Add On Product: and Additional Cost are required. The benefit will not save if either field is blank.
Edit or Remove a Benefit or Group
- Select the edit pencil icon on a benefit row to change it, or select the delete trash icon to remove it.
- To remove an entire optional benefit group, select Remove Group on that group's card.
- Confirm the warning that appears.
Warning
Deleting a benefit or an entire optional benefit group unlinks it from any sponsorship that already holds it, and Rhythm no longer tracks the capacity for that benefit or group. Recreating a benefit or group with the same name afterward does not restore that link. The confirmation appears even when no sponsor currently holds the benefit, so it does not tell you whether anyone is affected. If that matters to you, check who already holds the benefit first.
Dependencies and Precedence
- Charging extra for a benefit requires an add-on product to already exist. See Add-On Products.
- A benefit's identifier stays the same through edits, which keeps sold sponsorships linked to it. Editing a benefit in Rhythm preserves this connection; only an integration that explicitly changes the identifier can break the link.
- Included and optional benefits use the same table editor and follow the same expiry, capacity, and identity rules. Only optional benefits can carry an extra charge.
- Bundling a Sponsorship Add On product into a membership package does not create a sponsorship opportunity when someone buys that package. To have a sponsorship opportunity created automatically from a membership purchase, the bundled product must be a Sponsorship Opportunity, not a Sponsorship Add On.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- Editing a benefit's name, type, quantity, expiry, or capacity changes it going forward. It does not retroactively change what sponsors who already hold the benefit received.
- Deleting a benefit or group is effectively permanent for sponsorships that already hold it, because recreating one with the same name does not relink it. Consider whether you need to remove a benefit, or whether you only need to stop offering it on new sales.
Permissions
You need the permission your administrator grants for opportunity setup to add, change, or remove benefits and optional benefit groups.
Validation and Errors
A benefit will not save without a name or a valid type. After you turn on the additional-cost checkbox, a charged optional benefit will not save without an add-on product and an amount. An optional benefit group can stay empty while you work in the group panel, but the opportunity will not save until the group has at least one benefit.