[Maldridge422]

Originally Posted by Joe G.

Just ask. It's really pretty simple.

Well, there's more to it than that, but that's the biggest step, being willing to put yourself out there to anyone who may be able to help. You have to take a "shotgun approach" to it; focus on reaching as many potential sponsors as possible and don't get down when you get a lot of rejections, rather than spending energy trying to convince a few big but reluctant ones.

We have a two-page informational letter that we give out.

Do your research before you start. We created a massive spreadsheet of potential sponsors, way more than we've been able to actually reach out to to date. However, as a result we were able to dramatically increase our success rate by prioritizing those who we found to have donated to charitable organizations and other similar groups, and by focusing our pitch to precisely what we identified as the most likely method in which the target company could help us.

This is true. Here is a thread with examples. Asking anybody and everybody who is a potential sponsor is the best way to guarantee results.