Add sponsorship policy and request form

[spizeck]

Goal

Add a public Sponsorship Requests section to the Sea Saba website so organizations and community initiatives can understand Sea Saba's sponsorship standards and submit a complete request through a structured on-site form.

This belongs on the roadmap. Do not implement until the sponsorship policy and data-handling decisions below are finalized.

Business principles

Sea Saba is open to supporting worthwhile causes, but sponsorship should be deliberate rather than ad hoc.

Core principles:

• Transparency is required. Sea Saba does not sponsor or donate to organizations that cannot clearly explain who they are, who is responsible for the organization, how funds/resources are managed, and how the requested support will be used.
• Last-minute requests are discouraged. Sponsorship requests should be submitted with enough lead time for proper review and planning.
• A request is not an entitlement or guarantee of support.
• Sea Saba may decline requests that do not align with its values, available resources, or business priorities.
• The public policy should be clear and respectful, not accusatory or bureaucratic.

Policy work required before implementation

Draft a concise public sponsorship policy for owner review.

The policy should define at minimum:

Eligibility / transparency

Applicants should be prepared to provide:

• organization or initiative name
• purpose/mission
• primary contact
• responsible leadership/organizers
• website/social/public-information links where applicable
• what is being requested
• what the support will be used for
• event/project date
• relevant budget/fundraising context where appropriate
• how donated funds, goods, services, or vouchers will be accounted for
• how Sea Saba's contribution will be acknowledged, if applicable

For registered organizations/foundations, consider requesting public governance/board information and other reasonable transparency information.

Do not require information merely for the sake of collecting it. The final form should ask only what is useful for making a sponsorship decision.

Lead time

Define a minimum advance-request period.

Owner preference: Sea Saba does not want last-minute sponsorship requests.

Recommend an appropriate minimum lead time for owner approval rather than inventing a final policy in code. Consider whether exceptions should be possible at Sea Saba's discretion.

Decision criteria

Draft neutral criteria such as:

• transparency/accountability
• benefit to Saba/community
• fit with Sea Saba's values/business
• environmental/community relevance
• clarity of proposed use
• available annual sponsorship resources
• sufficient planning lead time
• prior support / equitable distribution where relevant

Avoid promising approval based solely on satisfying the criteria.

Public page

Create a future public route such as:

/sponsorship

The page should eventually contain:

1. short explanation of Sea Saba's approach to sponsorship/community support
2. eligibility and transparency expectations
3. required lead time
4. what information applicants should prepare
5. structured sponsorship request form
6. clear statement that submission does not guarantee approval

Tone should be friendly, direct, and consistent with Sea Saba.

Form

This should be a real server-side form, not a mailto: handoff.

Likely fields to evaluate:

• organization / initiative
• contact name
• email
• phone (optional)
• website/social link
• organization type
• event/project name
• event/project date
• requested support type
• estimated value/amount requested
• purpose/use of sponsorship
• community impact
• transparency/governance information
• acknowledgment/recognition offered
• supporting links or documents, if justified
• additional notes

Keep the final form focused. Use progressive disclosure if appropriate.

Delivery

Use Resend server-side.

Send successful requests to:

chad@seasaba.com

Requirements:

• server-only Resend credentials
• verified Sea Saba sending domain
• applicant email as Reply-To where appropriate
• clear structured subject/body
• validation and escaping
• spam/honeypot/rate limiting
• idempotency/double-submit protection
• useful success and failure states
• no secrets exposed client-side
• no sponsorship form data sent to analytics

This form is intentionally separate from the Respond.io contact-form architecture. Sponsorship submissions should go directly to the sponsorship review inbox via Resend.

Database decision

Do not add a database by default.

Before implementation, decide whether persistence adds enough value.

Email-only option

Advantages:

• simpler
• less personal data retained by the website
• lower maintenance
• Resend delivers the structured request directly to Chad

Likely sufficient if sponsorship volume is low and review happens primarily by email.

Database-backed option

Potential value if Sea Saba wants:

• request status tracking
• history of organizations previously supported
• annual sponsorship totals
• reporting
• duplicate/repeat-request visibility
• structured review workflow
• attachments
• future staff access

Costs include:

• additional personal-data retention
• access controls
• retention/deletion policy
• admin UI/workflow
• backup/security obligations

The implementation issue should document the decision before adding persistence.

A reasonable Phase 1 default is email-only via Resend, unless the audit finds a concrete operational need for storage.

Privacy

Review the site's Privacy Policy before launch.

Document:

• what sponsorship information is collected
• why it is collected
• who receives it
• whether it is stored by Sea Saba beyond email delivery
• relevant third-party processor disclosure for Resend
• retention approach if database storage is introduced

Analytics

Track only non-PII events if useful, for example:

• sponsorship_form_start
• sponsorship_form_success
• sponsorship_form_failure

Never send organization names, contact details, request amounts, message text, or other submitted values to GA/GTM/Vercel Analytics.

Accessibility / UX

• proper labels and field descriptions
• keyboard accessible
• accessible validation/status messages
• good mobile layout
• preserve entered data after recoverable errors
• do not require unnecessary fields
• clear explanation of why transparency information is requested

Suggested implementation sequence

1. Owner approves sponsorship policy and minimum lead time.
2. Decide email-only vs database persistence.
3. Build public page and form.
4. Add server-side Resend delivery.
5. Add privacy/analytics documentation.
6. Add unit/integration/E2E coverage.
7. Manually test a controlled submission in production/appropriate environment.

Acceptance criteria

• Sponsorship policy is approved before public launch.
• Transparency expectations are explicit.
• Minimum request lead time is explicit.
• Public page clearly explains the process.
• Structured request can be submitted without opening an email client.
• Successful submissions reach chad@seasaba.com through Resend.
• Provider failure never reports false success.
• Abuse protections are in place.
• Database persistence is implemented only if explicitly approved.
• Privacy documentation matches actual behavior.
• No submitted PII enters analytics.
• Automated tests cover validation, success, provider failure, duplicate submission, and abuse controls.
• Implementation PR remains unmerged for owner review.