MDF & Co-op Funds

Intro. Vendors hand channel partners two kinds of marketing money: MDF (market development funds), discretionary dollars given in advance to drive future demand, and co-op funds, which you earn as a percentage of what you've already bought or sold. Both pay for campaigns, events and lead generation, and both are lost the same way, to deadlines, pre-approval rules and missing proof of performance. This cluster defines every term you need to claim them on time, from your perspective.

Foundations (Tier A: already built):

• MDF (market development funds): discretionary marketing dollars given in advance
• MDF vs co-op funds: how the two differ and why it matters

Supporting terms (Tier B):

• Co-op funds: marketing money earned as a percentage of past purchases or sales
• MDF claim: the submission that turns approved MDF activity into reimbursement
• Co-op claim: claiming against your accrued co-op balance
• Proof of performance (POP): the evidence that gets a claim paid
• Pre-approval: vendor sign-off before you spend
• Reimbursement: how and when funds are paid back
• Fund expiration: the deadline that forfeits unspent funds
• Use-it-or-lose-it funds: funds that vanish if unspent in the window
• Activity plan: the proposal you submit for pre-approval
• Co-branded campaign: partner-and-vendor marketing, often funded by MDF/co-op
• Demand generation: the activity most marketing funds exist to drive
• Through-channel marketing automation (TCMA): the vendor platform that distributes campaigns to partners
• Claim rejection: why claims get denied and how to avoid it

Tools and metrics for these funds (defined in other clusters):

• MDF management software: the software category that tracks allocations, claims and deadlines across vendors
• Co-op fund management software: the same category for funds you accrue rather than funds a vendor allocates
• MDF utilization rate: the metric that shows how much of an allocation was actually used