[mathking]

When you are looking at larger companies with the potential for larger donations, you have a much better chance if you can find some connection to set up an appointment and try to convince them why they should give money. We have done that with a number of businesses. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We have a fortune 25 company whose HQ you can see from our school (and who makes robots) and have not gotten any money from them in three tries. We also have some other big corporations in the area which have given us multiple donations of $2000-3000 over the years. We also drew in almost two thousand last year just sending our brochures and fundraising letter to a lot of local businesses, pulling in mostly $50 and $100 donations. But it generally works better if you can find someone who works at a company or is a client of a company to make the first approach.

As for the hard times, try to focus on companies which are doing better. That is pretty easy information to locate online. If you happen to be near an oil company HQ for example, you might be in luck. Other energy companies are doing well too. AEP gives a lot of teams (including ours) a lot of money every year. Another thing you should do is find out what kind of charitable foundations exist in your area and the kinds of things for which they give money.