20 is probably about right. We send 400-500 letters out every year and received replies from 100 or so people. We look at other school websites (what they're giving away). We even go throught the Entertainment book writing to all the restaurants, etc. While you will get a lot of rejections, once in a while you hit the jackpot. We recently wrote to Sony asking for a CD player, playstation, etc. and they sent us a 27" flat screen TV! While exciting, it doesn't happen all too often.

Hi All!

Thanks for your replies & input!

Kamamom...Yes I am from Jersey! lol but I really had no idea that use of that idea was a Jersy thing! I am in Bergen County. Where are you?

Actually we did out first tricky tray 2 years ago (the plan was to do one very other year) and it was a joint venture with the middle school.
This year the middle school has decided they do not want the headache of doing one, so we are now on our own to pull of our first one.

We do go after all the local businesses and malls, but someone had mentioned that we should write to National companies to see what we can get. Like pwalther said they wrote 150 letters and only got a few things out of it, so surely it would be great to know exactly who to shoot for.

Last time around we did get a lot of gift certificates from restaurants. So I do reccomend hitting them all up. Also almost any hair or nail place will give you gift certificates too.

My husband knows someone from Home Depot so we had an inside connection, but I do know that if you go to your local one with a letter they will request from corporate to get you a gift certificate. They do have a certain amount that they allot a year.

Depending on when their fiscal year ends you need to hit these businesses at the right time.

Thanks again! & I will post again too as we go along and make progress.

Last year was our first time doing this as part of our carnival. We got a $100 gift card from Circuit City. We didn't get very many responses. Out of about 150 letters we only got 20 responses and some of those were declines. We ended up with about 12 donations. Most of them were local attractions.

You could also ask the grocery stores if they have gift cards. We got one last year and then used to purchase items for a basket.

Serendipity--where are you from? We use the same term in Jersey, and that seems to be the only place that uses it!

It's funny you should ask about this topic, because my group is holding our first as well. Sometimes people are great about sharing their lists, then others are afraid of the well going dry! It's MUCH MUCH easier getting product out of companies than cash--THAT they make you jump through about 1,000 flaming hoops for! I'm in the process of cultivating our donors list right now, with a LOT of help from a WONDERFUL PTO pres in another school, and a member who ran one a few years ago for her nephew who has MD. Her list was a little outdated--a lot of big corporations--General Mills, Kraft, Toys R Us, Mattel, Topps baseball cards don't donate to "grassroots" any more unless you have a personal contact there. These guys only give to things like Red Cross, Gifts in Kind (United Way)--both of which I have a personal problem with, but that's beside the point. I'd give you MY list, but it's almost all local businesses right now.

From what I've heard, and have put on my list, these companies are very easy-going AND generous. Get the definitive info on each on their websites and look under "corporate info" or "about us" and then for "corporate/social responsibility" or "community", or by calling them:

-Build a Bear
-Estee Lauder
-Local Coca Cola Bottling Plant
-Wise Potato Chips
-Crabtree & Evelyn
-Any National Sports Team -- especially home state/city IF you provide them with the info they want
-Local Theme Parks
-Museums
-Target will give gift cards, but it's first come first served--they run out by August or so around here
-Entemann's, but you have to pick up at a designated warehouse store
-Department Stores like Macy's for gift cards
-Gap will donate cards IF you provide them with VERY specific information, and even then they don't guarantee they'll give
-Nike is the same
-anyone selling Home Interiors, Mary Kay, Party Lite, Pampered Chef
-any basket company in your area
-The bank we have an account with is VERY generous and helpful--she provides balloons etc. if we give her enough lead time.
- a lot of people on these boards have suggested things you can't put a price on--the chief of police/fire department coming up with sirens blaring to take a lucky child and a couple of friends to lunch, prime parking spot at the school if you can get the principal to OK it, hand knitted/embroidered/sewn/wood crafted items

Whether or not our local businesses who won't give much to the local PTOs will step up to the plate for our playground fund remains to be seen! A friend told me to also hit up local restaurants and movie theaters--use a dinner and a movie for a "Night Out Basket," and the member I have who has done this before said a really popular basket at the one she ran was for an autographed photo of John Travolta she framed(she wrote to him and explained why she wanted it),then added DVDs of "Grease," "Saturday Night Fever" and "Look who's Talking" with a box of popcorn for a Travolta Fest Basket! You could do the same with a musicial group and CDs, or a set of books autographed by an author.

From what I see you have to go to a LOT of people, so that if you only get little things you have enough to make up theme baskets with. Also have each grade/class in your school choose a theme from a list you provide and they pull those together to donate.

Just make it as easy as you can for them to give: They all want letterhead (some refuse to take xeroxed copies !), either your 501(c)(3) number or the actual letter of determination, what exactly you want(we phrased it as, "a basket comprised of the quality products your company offers," or something like that), what you'll be doing with it, and quite a few now want to know WHO is responsible for the product from accepting delivery to the actual event and how they'll be thanked acknowledged in a public forum!

GOOD LUCK--when I start hearing back I'll keep you updated!

[ 07-01-2004, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: kmamom ]

A tricky Tray is the now PC name for a Chinesse Auction. This is when you get donations of various items and you have themed gift baskets filled with items. All of your items are placed on tables with a container in front of each item. People come and buy tickets from you, they then go from table to table putting tickets into the containers of the items they would like to win. When all the ticket placing is done you go item by item pulling a ticket out and giving the prize to the person with the winning ticket.

What's a tricky tray?