PTOCES, Can you please email me? I'd like to ask you some questions and explain what we were told. Perhaps you can help. Thanks! My email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I do not know where you got your information about Wal-Mart. I know that I get money from them all year long for the school. Maybe your local Wal-Mart isn't very up on the policies. I would check into a little futher. Let them know that you are interested in their MATCHING GRANTS. They honestly match up to $1000.00 an event. Now if you are in a large city, it may be that your WM only has certain amount of funds in their BONUS GRANTS that are ran thru quickly because of everyone applying, but MATCHING GRANTS are up to $1000.00. Yes, you can be denied if your fundraising event doesn't qualify. But out of all I've ever seen done thru WM over 10 years, there's not many that are denied. You can have a Chili Supper, Raffle, Fall Festival, T-Shirt Sales, etc. One thing that might be hindering some people from getting money from a WM thru a grant is the time of year in which you ask/apply. Take it from an insider........GO FEBRUARY 1st. That is the beginning of our fisical year and that is the time to get your applications in. (If you go any later than the end of February, you are MOST LIKELY not going to get anything. It really depends on how big your local WM is.) You must already have a fundraiser in place that it can apply for. Go ahead and apply for any fundraisers that you have in the Fall of the next school year.

As for people saying that the Manager is not her right now, I hope that wasn't said in a Wal-Mart, we are always there. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I hope that everyone truly goes to Wal-Mart on 2/1 and applies for these grants. If anyone has any problems, let me know where you are and I'll see if I can help you. I would need the store number (Not the phone number) and location (city and state).

~B

[ 01-18-2006, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: PTOCES ]

I have to say we just sent out 400 letters and mostly all were local businesses and I am getting a great response. I have been really impressed with our donations this year.
I can get exact figures when we start finishing up as to how many donated.

Cindy

I tried the personal approach. (See my thread "local business donations are a joke!") When I walk into a business (six so far) whomever is at the counter has unanimously stated the same thing, "I don't know." [Insert your buck tooth, corn-shucking, trailer park, peroxide hair heifer - not all in the same group - laugh here.] I get NOWHERE and they seem like they don't even know what a MANAGER is - M-A-N-A-G-E-R and when I did ask for one - another unanimous answer, "He's/She's not here right now." AHHHHH!!!

GAPTADAD, I wouldn't write to local businesses at all. Corporate ones, sure, but local people like the person-to-person approach.

And for the Walmart comments, it is something to check into. But when we inquired at Walmart, we were told that Walmart makes a lifetime contribution of $200 to a particular organization. Once you hit the $200, no more for you. Ever.

And since this is our first year soliciting, we thought we'd hit the corporate headquarters first to see what they said, before hitting the local scene. All it costs is some time and stamps. I don't mind doing it.

It's only been 2 weeks since the letters sent out, and different websites that I saw said to allow 6 - 12 weeks, depending on the site, so I think it is too early to tell how we are doing. We'll start the local solicitation in a little while.

Our solicitation team is using the internet this year with much success. So far, they have hit 151 businesses online with many positive responses.

Truthfully though, the bulk of our donations come from local businesses. Our solicitors do their best to cultivate relationships with these vendors so that each year, getting them to donate becomes easier, if not automatic.