Business Partnerships - Sample Letter

This is a sample letter that you might use to contact the program staff of a Business Partnership grant initiative.

Vision Middle School
Making a difference for all children
2112 Barksdale Avenue
Vision, Texas 77773
903-555-2405

May 15, 2000

Mr. Carl Johnson
Artisan Manufacturing Company
317 Oakridge Road
Vision, TX 77773

Dear Mr. Johnson:

First, I would like to thank you for visiting with our eighth grade class on their recent visit to your plant. It meant a great deal to these students for you, president of the company, to take time out of your busy schedule to talk to them and answer their questions. Artisan Manufacturing is a vital part of this community, and we appreciate the support you have always shown our schools.

As you well know, many of our high school graduates in Vision begin their working careers at Artisan. Unfortunately, I am not sure at the present time that these students make your best employees. Our reading scores at the middle school and high school for the last few years have been well below the state and national averages. We also know that if our students cannot read well when they graduate, they have more problems with beginning college courses and with training programs that employers require.

On a positive note, our school system is finally beginning to put the emphasis on reading at the secondary level that it should. In fact, we have found a program that has been thoroughly researched and proven effective with all types of students throughout the country. The name of the program is Reading Renaissance, and if used properly, students often make gains of 1 1/2 to 2 years in their reading levels in a single school year. If we can put this program in place in August when we return to school, we will begin to positively impact the reading levels of our graduates as early as this coming year.

Here is the problem. Our school budget at Vision Middle School is very tight. We have found the funds to buy much of what we need to put Reading Renaissance in place. We have purchased ten computers to use with the Reading Renaissance. We have bought Accelerated Reader and STAR Reading which are the two main software components of the program. We have also had our parent group purchase $10,000 worth of library books that we need to initiate Reading Renaissance. Our big problem is that we do not have the money to train our teachers to use this program most effectively. We believe it makes no more sense to start our teachers using this program without training than it would for you to put an employee on an expensive piece of manufacturing equipment with no training.

We need your help. We would like a consultant from the School Renaissance Institute to come to Vision Middle School to train our entire staff. This initial training would be for one day to get us started. In about four months, we would like the consultant to return to give us more in-depth training. Finally, we would like the consultant to return to our middle school and high school for more fine-tuning and help as the year progresses. This training is not cheap, but I attended the initial training in San Antonio this summer myself, and I can personally guarantee you that it is the best training that I have ever had attended.

Having the consultant from the School Renaissance Institute to come here four times for a total of five days to train us and insure our success with Reading Renaissance will cost approximately $20,000. We are asking you to partner with us and pay half of that amount, $10,000. We know this would be a large investment for Artisan Manufacturing, but we believe it will be worth your money in terms of increased productivity from the workers that graduate from our high school with much higher reading levels and the positive PR you would receive by entering this partnership.

I would like to set a time that I can meet with you and your committee to discuss this project. Please give me a call at work, 903-555-2405, or at home, 903-555-2252 if you have any questions or suggestions to help us move forward with our plans. I look forward to working with you personally and with Artisan Manufacturing. Together, I know we can build a partnership that will be beneficial to the children of this community for years to come.

Sincerely,

Cindy Watkins
Principal

return to business partnerships