by Lynelle Herndon

Created on: January 18, 2011   Last Updated: January 24, 2011

Schools are arguably the most important community function. Neighborhood schools are responsible for the personal, social and educational growth of our children, which Whitney Houston reminds us all, are the future. Needless to say, community businesses should be supporting our schools. The best way to get these businesses to participate with these schools is to remind them of their obligation to the community. In this article you will find a step-by-step guide to getting local businesses in a community to donate to school functions. 

The first thing you will need is a team. Parent volunteers may be found by contacting the school's Parent Teacher Association. If the event is sponsored by the school's PTA, use the people directly involved creating the event to be the liaisons between the school and the businesses. The team will need to put together a "one-pager", a short description of the event to be sent out to the local businesses. The one-pager should include information about the school, the goals of the event, the details of the event, and of course it should be one page long. Pictures are a great thing to include with the one-pager. It should be laid out in a simple, easy-to-read format so that a person can glance quickly at it and have an idea of exactly what they're getting involved in. 

The next thing you will need is research.  Have a few of the team members gather information on the local businesses. They should obtain the business's type, location and contact information. For small to medium businesses, the contact will be the business owner or manager. For larger corporations and franchises, you will want the name of a contact in the Human Resources department. 

Once the information on the local businesses are collected, it will need to be entered into a spreadsheet, that will be printed out and split up amongst the team members to begin calling to request donations.  The spreadsheet should have the business name, contact information, and a separate sections for a note log.  Each time the business is contacted, the person with the request should fill out the log based on the results of the phone call.  For example, in the first phone call you left a message for so and so on such and such a date, and you plan to call back at the end of the week.  Then you called back and were able to speak with so and so, and you faxed them over a copy of your one-pager, along with your donation request.  Two weeks

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