I think the way to go with direct sales companies is to get local reps to donate -- other than Stampin' Up, it never even occurred to me to try the headquarters. We have donations from the local reps of Scentsy, Thirty-One, Creative Memories, Mary Kay & Pampered Chef every year.
As far as contacting businesses, I'm basically it for our school ... like one of the previous posters, it isn't a big deal to email companies from my comfy couch at night watching TV
I still send quite a few letters in the mail, too. What we don't do is "cold call" local places. If we have a contact, then fine ... but we've found that no one really wants to do the leg work of going door to door & the years that we did, the baskets (lunch around town, etc) didn't bring much money, considering the work involved.
We're at the 30-day mark for our auction (on Tuesday) ... I might do one last blitz of letters to some of our local places, but other than that, I think it's time to focus on what we can get within the school.
-- I got a no this week from Drury. Bummed about that one. We got a donation from them in 2010, and I'd hoped to put together a St. Louis package that included a hotel stay.