The Exploration Company Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Company Description

Exploration Summit is a museum in the making. It's mission is to create a world-class, hands-on S.T.E.A.M. museum where ages 0 to 99 come to encounter modern science and technology through unforgettable experiences that not only entertain but inspire. We are building a place where curiosity comes alive, where children discover careers they never knew existed, where families explore together, and where guests of every age leave inspired by what they are capable of becoming. Bringing a vision this ambitious to life takes more than a great idea; it takes passionate, driven people who want to build something that will matter to this community for generations. If you want your work to have a visible impact and if you want to be able to say, "I helped bring Exploration Summit to Colorado Springs,” we invite you to join us and help turn this extraordinary vision into a landmark our city can be proud of.

The Role

At Exploration Summit, we don't just look for sponsors. We look for organizations that share the same mission mindset as Exploration Summit and belong as part of the experience.

Our Inspiration Agents build relationships between Exploration Summit and the businesses, organizations, and community leaders who can help bring this extraordinary hands-on science and technology museum to life.

The primary focus of this role is developing corporate sponsorship partnerships. Inspiration Agents identify prospective sponsors, learn what matters to their organizations, and match them with meaningful opportunities throughout Exploration Summit, from individual exhibits and exhibit halls to classrooms, visitor amenities, events, programs, and other highly visible museum experiences.

The goal isn't simply to sell a sponsorship package. It's to find the place where a company's story, industry, audience, or mission naturally intersects with what our visitors will experience.

A company working in aviation might belong alongside an experience about flight. An engineering firm might connect naturally with an exhibit centered on structures or problem-solving. A technology company might help bring an interactive digital experience to life.

The best partnerships feel like they were meant to be there.

And sponsorships are only part of the opportunity.

As Exploration Summit grows, Inspiration Agents will also help identify creative community partnerships connected to our broader Rising Tide initiative - relationships where businesses, educators, organizations, entrepreneurs, and other community partners can become part of the Exploration Summit ecosystem in ways that create meaningful value for everyone involved.

What Inspiration Agents Are Selling

Inspiration Agents sell community partnerships that become part of the Exploration Summit experience.

Exploration Summit is being built for our community, by our community, and to belong to our community. Our goal is to create a rising tide, using the museum's audience, experiences, visibility, and resources to create meaningful opportunities for businesses, organizations, educators, and other community partners while those partners help make Exploration Summit stronger.

Traditional sponsorship benefits such as brand visibility may be part of a partnership, but we want to go much further than placing logos on exhibits.

We want our partners to feel built into the museum.

That can include:

• Immersive brand integration: An airline-sponsored flight simulator can feel like guests are actually piloting that airline's aircraft, not a generic plane with a logo attached afterward.
• Industry representation: Exhibits can introduce children to the science, technology, careers, and real-world work behind a sponsor's industry, helping companies inspire their next generation of employees, customers, and innovators.
• Exclusive representation: In appropriate partnerships, a company may become the museum's exclusive representative for its industry or product category. For example, serving one partner's ice cream or featuring one home-improvement partner within hands-on building activities.
• Integrated museum experiences: Partner brands can become part of the museum's physical environment, programming, costumes, tools, activities, special experiences, and visitor interactions.
• LED ceiling storytelling: Sponsors can be incorporated directly into Exploration Summit's signature immersive ceiling experience. Aircraft can fly overhead, branded construction equipment can help "remove" the virtual roof, research organizations can operate the submarine transporting guests beneath the ocean, and community partners can become characters within the museum's continuously changing virtual environments.
• "My Museum" storytelling: Representatives from select partners can personally welcome visitors on Exploration Summit's large digital welcome display, introduce themselves, refer to Exploration Summit as "my museum," and invite guests to experience the exhibit or space their organization helped create.
• Exhibit-side digital storytelling: Sponsor representatives can appear on digital displays beside exhibits to explain how an experience works, how the science is used in their industry, and what careers allow people to work with those concepts every day.
• Cross-promotional partnerships: Exploration Summit can build offers that benefit both organizations such as birthday-party packages connected to a restaurant partner, membership benefits shared with other attractions, or special promotions that encourage customers to engage with multiple community businesses.
• Rising Tide partnerships: Some of our strongest relationships may not look like traditional sponsorships at all. Businesses, attractions, educators, service providers, entrepreneurs, and community organizations may become deeply integrated partners whose products, services, expertise, programming, or experiences effectively "move in" to Exploration Summit through mutually beneficial relationships.

An Inspiration Agent's job is therefore not simply to ask, "Who wants to sponsor an exhibit?"

It is to ask: "Who belongs inside Exploration Summit and how can we build a partnership that makes both organizations stronger?"

The result should be a museum where visitors don't simply see the names of the organizations that helped build it. They experience a museum that represents our community.

What You'll DoBuild Corporate Sponsorship Partnerships

Your primary responsibility will be developing relationships with businesses that could become Exploration Summit sponsors.

You will:

• Identify businesses and organizations whose brands naturally align with Exploration Summit exhibits, programs, spaces, events, and visitor experiences.
• Research prospective partners and understand their industries, audiences, community priorities, and marketing goals.
• Conduct outreach through phone calls, email, networking, referrals, community events, and in-person meetings.
• Introduce business leaders to the Exploration Summit vision and help them understand the opportunity to become part of the museum experience.
• Match prospective sponsors with opportunities that make sense for their brand rather than simply presenting a generic sponsorship package.
• Present sponsorship opportunities ranging from individual exhibits and museum elements to major exhibit halls and experiential partnerships.
• Help prospective sponsors visualize how their company could be thoughtfully incorporated into Exploration Summit.
• Develop long-term relationships with sponsors rather than treating partnerships as one-time transactions.
• Coordinate with Exploration Summit leadership to develop creative partnership concepts for prospective sponsors.
• Maintain an organized pipeline of prospects, conversations, follow-ups, proposals, and partnership opportunities.
• Help move qualified prospects from initial introduction through signed sponsorship agreements.
• Represent Exploration Summit professionally at business, civic, networking, and community events.

Who We're Looking For

We're looking for people who genuinely enjoy meeting others, building relationships, opening doors, and turning conversations into opportunities.

The strongest Inspiration Agents will be:

• Relationship builders. People naturally trust you and enjoy talking with you.
• Confident communicators. You're comfortable speaking with everyone from a local entrepreneur to a corporate executive.
• Curious researchers. Before approaching a company, you want to understand what they do and why a partnership might make sense.
• Creative thinkers. You can look at a business and imagine where its story could intersect with Exploration Summit.
• Comfortable with sales. You understand that this is a results-driven role and are willing to prospect, follow up, ask for the meeting, present opportunities, overcome objections, and ask for the partnership.
• Persistent without being pushy. You understand that strong partnerships often require consistent, thoughtful follow-up. 
• Highly organized. You can manage multiple prospects, conversations, commitments, and follow-up dates without letting opportunities disappear.
• Community-minded. You enjoy learning who is doing interesting work throughout Colorado Springs and bringing the right people together.
• Entrepreneurial. Exploration Summit is being built, which means not every opportunity will come with a prewritten playbook.
• Excited by the mission. You believe Colorado Springs can benefit from an extraordinary place where people of all ages can encounter science and technology through unforgettable hands-on experiences.

Compensation: Agents earn 5% commission on eligible sponsorship revenue they personally secure, creating meaningful earning potential with no artificial cap on success. Because Exploration Summit partnerships can range from smaller community opportunities to major corporate and industry sponsorships, a single successful partnership can represent significant compensation.