I just received my Pearl Paradise 16 or 18" strand of AA+ black freshwater pearls. It was sent via UPS and arrived on time. It comes with a beautiful case, and an acrylic stand and laminated marketing piece, lots of postcards and business cards. A few things to note: the pearls are absolutely beautiful! They also put a note on the laminated marketing piece - they want the marketing piece back and the acrylic stand as well. I definitely will return those, as the bottom line is, if we as donation requestors don't do as they ask, they stated (very, very nicely) that they cannot continue to offer this beneficial service to us. So I'm going to do my part, and I really hope that everyone else on these boards does the same so that it doesn't get ruined for all of us! Thirdly, they also included an invoice that stated: "We are happy to contribute this strand of genuine pearls to your fundraising auction. Hopefully it will illicit a sizable donation. The retail value of the strand is approximately $500, and it consists of 6.0 - 7.0mm, AA+ grade black freshwater pearls." Ok so here is what I'm going to do - I'm going to put this invoice in one of our acrylic holders, highlight what I just typed, and I'll start bidding at $90.00. I don't think that is unfair, afterall, the invoice says $500 retail. So, I've changed my stance since emailing another gal who posted about the retail value vs. the online price. The company themselves stated the $500 retail value, so I feel I am not being deceitful. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd greatly appreciate the feedback as I don't want to not consider all the angles. Again: The invoice will be out in plain view for all bidders to see and they can decide for themselves. Feedback anyone? Thanks so much - If I hadn't been on these message boards I never would have found out about Pearl Paradise!
For Stampin' Up, if you get rejected for a weird reason I recommend reapplying. We were rejected with the reason "you are not a nonprofit and did not apply with a nonprofit number", but we are and I explicitly said this and included our number. I ended up reapplying a day later, and now we are approved (with the exact same info). Strange!
Cheesecake Factory - send a letter to your local one - they donated a $50 gift certificate
Chelsea Piers in NY - fill out donation request form and make sure to follow up if don't hear from them - I followed up last week and they sent them right away
H&R Block - they donated 2 tax prep's ($150 each) and $200 for money trees (wrote a letter on line and then it was forwarded to a local office)
C&H Sugar company just sent us the following: Domino Foods three coupons, an apron, C&H Sugars 100 anniversary cookbook, Favorite Recipes, Sweet Secrets cookbook, Bakers, Sugar CD Collection, The Best of Best Cookbook. I made the request in the beginning of the month...
Thank you for telling me how to find the airtran status. I cant believe I didnt see that at the top 8/
I'm glad I checked, the one submission I was waiting on said I didnt complete it so it's too late for that, the event is this weekend. The other one I submitted on 2/26 for an April event simply says submitted. Just been over 2 weeks so it sounds like I should hear something soon...
Am picking up the Chick Fil A donation tomorrow...they're the best to work with. She's giving me 200 meal cards to hand out at our event! Raising Canes is another good one, she gives gift buckets and meal cards every time I ask.
@MMA regarding Air Tran-they sent us an email about 2 weeks before our event and we received the vouchers about 3 days later via US Mail.
Be aware that the vouchers are subject to black out dates and capacity restrictions. When I called to get the black out dates they were around all the holidays. A couple days before/after and air travel has to be completed by Dec 31, 2011.
This discouraged a lot of people from bidding on the vouchers, but we still ended up getting $300 a piece for each one.
