In-person marketing: Platforms pay hosts to sponsor local gatherings

Local community groups in the United States are increasingly accepting corporate sponsorship to fund their operations. This shift brings advertising dollars into small-scale, in-person gatherings that previously relied on organic participation or ticket sales. A startup called Offline is at the center of this emerging market, acting as a bridge between event hosts and brands seeking face-to-face engagement.

Offline was launched in September 2025 by Andrew Roth and Chris Banks. Roth, 28, previously founded DCDX, a Gen Z-focused research firm acquired by Visible Ventures. The company now lists more than 900 communities on its platform. These groups range from run clubs to motherhood circles to literary societies. Hosts create profiles detailing attendance numbers and event frequency. Brands then match with these profiles to create campaign briefs.

Monetization varies by agreement, but hosts on the platform report an average payout of $2,500 to $3,000 per event. For smaller groups, this revenue stream is often essential for survival. Kelly Chervin, 35, founded Lit Club NYC in March 2025 to connect Latina readers. She describes the need for paid partnerships as necessary for the group's long-term existence. "If we want to have a literary community be around sustainably," Chervin says, "then paid partnerships are part of that."

Chervin recently partnered with Tinder for a quarterly book crawl event in New York City's Upper East Side. The event attracted more than 80 attendees. For this collaboration, Chervin earns $20 per attendee. She also fulfills deliverables such as social media posts promoting the partnership. Lit Club's Instagram page now directs followers to the Tinder app to discover similar events. Chervin notes that the fit works because Tinder aims to facilitate in-person connections, aligning with her own mission.

Michael Lombardo, 43, founded the McGolrick Bird Club in Brooklyn, New York, in April 2023. The free weekly meetup draws about 100 participants to McGolrick Park for bird watching. Lombardo connected with Offline earlier this year to explore brand partnerships. As a freelance designer and writer with two children, he views the income as a practical necessity. "I do need to support my family," Lombardo says. He remains selective, ensuring any partnership benefits the community's core purpose.

Experts offer mixed assessments of this trend. Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing and psychological sciences at the University of Delaware, remains optimistic. He believes the primary value lies in the frequency of human interaction. "As long as they actually are allowing people to engage with one another and connect with one another," Kumar says, "there's a potential benefit to that."

Benjamin Cornwell, a sociology professor at Cornell University, holds a more skeptical view. He argues that a community ceases to be organic once it is fueled by a profit-motivated company. Cornwell warns that members may lose faith in the original purpose of the group. Some attendees may drop out as a result. He describes this erosion of trust as "inevitable," even if it does not happen immediately.

Feedback from attendees at recent sponsored events has been divided. At the Lit Club event, some participants appreciated Tinder's presence, while others felt the event implied a dating agenda. Chervin also partnered with an AI company in September for a Meta ad campaign. That collaboration sparked internal debate about brand alignment. While Chervin lost no paid subscribers, she notes that some members in her broader community said they could not return.

Roth defends the financial model, acknowledging the risk of criticism. He states that if people view the platform negatively in a decade, he will point to the total volume of money paid to organizers. "We paid out a billion dollars to organizers, and we've created I don't know how many more events," Roth says.

Offline continues to expand its roster of 900-plus communities. The platform aims to create what Roth calls "intimacy at scale." Hosts retain control over which brands they accept, balancing financial needs with community values. The market for these sponsored gatherings is currently growing as brands seek alternatives to digital advertising.