Response 7

According to Brandt, sponsors “enter a reciprocal relationship with those they underwrite” (3). They do this by lending their resources and credibility to those they sponsor and by doing this gain benefits from the sponsored’s success. This can be through direct payment or indirectly through credit or association. This sponsorship doesn’t necessarily have to occur between a teacher and student; it can occur through coworkers, friends, advertising, etc. Brandt spends the majority of her article arguing about the relationships between sponsors, literacy and socioeconomic status.

I have had many experiences with sponsors during my life but the main example that comes to mind is internships, specifically unpaid internships. For example, my internship at O’Bleness this past summer was unpaid. I only worked 24 hours a week but with three interns there was never enough work to go around. But because they weren’t paying any of us, we all got to stay later than necessary so we could fulfill a 200-hour internship requirement. In payment for O’Bleness signing off on our internship, they got a large public relations staff that they didn’t have to pay a salary. Both sides benefited: the intern in the form of a fulfilled requirement and O’Bleness in the form of free work.

Another example of sponsorship is networking in general. In today’s society, who you know is typically more important than what you know. If you sponsor someone now, you never know what kind of favor they can repay you with in 10 years.