I don't have a copy handy of our letter, but it's very basic.
(Something like:
To whom it may concern:
___ PTO is preparing to hold our annual carnival as a fun event for our children and their families. In order to make it more succesful we are asking for donations toward our Chinese Auction. Any donation you can make would be most helpful.
If you have questions, please contact ___at ____.)
You might want to mention something about it being a community event and the assistance of community members is truly appreciated.

To tell you the truth I don't think what you say really matters. I think they see it's for a donation & forward it to the appropriate person. I don't know, maybe I'm naive.

[This message has been edited by MightyJo (edited 06-23-2001).]

I have read a lot about sending letters to area vendors in order to receive donations for silent auctions. My questions is this- Does anyone have a form letter or sample letter that they have had a positve response from? I want to solicit our area vendors, but I want to make sure my letter is persuasive enough and doesn't turn them off from us. Any help would be greatly appreciated. By the way, did you know that Gap will donate gift cards to your organization to raffle off? We did it last year to a very positive response.

[This message has been edited by juliedio (edited 06-17-2001).]