Playbook for PTA groups and teachers
How to find local business sponsors for your school
Local businesses want to support neighborhood schools — they just need to be asked, clearly and with something real in return. Here's the outreach playbook that works.
Start with businesses that already know your families
The best prospects are the places your families already frequent: the pizza shop near campus, the dentist on the corner, the youth-sports league sponsor banners you see every weekend. They advertise to your exact neighborhood already — a school fundraiser just gives them a warmer way to do it.
- Restaurants and cafes within a mile of the school
- Dentists, orthodontists, pediatricians, and eye doctors
- Real estate agents who farm the neighborhood
- Auto shops, salons, and family-owned retail
- Employers of your students' parents (ask the PTA!)
What to say: the 30-second pitch
Keep it concrete and short. Lead with what's in it for them, not with the ask:
“Our students made a coloring book from their own drawings, and we're looking for five local sponsors at $10 each. Your logo goes on the sponsor page printed in every copy — it'll be in hundreds of Valley homes. Can we put you down?”
Notice the ingredients: a specific number of spots (scarcity), a tiny price (no-brainer), and a tangible deliverable (logo in a real book). Vague asks get vague answers.
Make the yes easy
- Bring a one-pager, not a packet. One page: what it is, what they get, what it costs, where to sign up.
- Let them pay on the spot. A link they can open on their phone beats a form they'll “get to later.” Our sponsor page takes two minutes through PayPal.
- Name a deadline. “We're printing on the 15th” moves decisions that “whenever” never will.
Follow up like you mean it
After the book prints, deliver what you promised loudly: tag sponsors in social posts, thank them at the school event, and send a photo of kids holding the book with their logo in it. Sponsors who feel seen become annual sponsors — and they tell the business next door.
The shortcut: send them here
Don't want to run outreach yourself? Point local businesses straight at susieqsbooks.org/sponsor, where they can pick a classroom book, add their logo, and pay in about two minutes. Every $10 spot is one more page of the book funded.
Bring it to your school — free
The project costs your school nothing. Local sponsors cover every book, and your students' art does the rest.