Local sponsor and raffle prize ask sheet: a Google Sheet of nearby businesses' public inboxes and phones, with who asked, what for and when to follow up

Updated 22 Oct 2026 · Disclosure: the contact scraper linked below is an Unadhi product on the Apify Store. This guide is free, and the sheet works with a CSV from any tool or by copying contacts by hand. Current Apify pricing is only on the Store page. This page has no affiliate links and nobody paid to be mentioned.

The finished sheet

asks tab (example rows are made up)

totals tab

Who this is for

• Parent-teacher associations and school fair committees asking local shops for raffle and tombola prizes.
• Charity run, sports club and community event organisers looking for a few local sponsors.
• Volunteers who share the asking and keep asking the same business twice, or forget to say thank you.

The hard part is rarely the list of names; it is finding how each business wants to be contacted, splitting the asks between volunteers and remembering who to chase. This sheet keeps all of that in one place.

Step 1: list the businesses (tab list)

Columns: A business, B website, C ask (cash sponsor, raffle prize or in-kind), D asked by. Start with places your families and members already use: the shops on the high street, the café by the school gate, last year's sponsors. A short list of businesses with a real link to your event gets more yes answers than a long list of strangers.

In E2, turn the websites into domains:

=ARRAYFORMULA(IF(B2:B="",,LOWER(REGEXREPLACE(REGEXREPLACE(TRIM(B2:B),"^(https?://)?(www\.)?",""),"[/?#].*$",""))))

That turns https://www.Example-Bakery.co.uk/about into example-bakery.co.uk, the same form the scraper writes in its domain field, so it is the key the formulas join on. Businesses with no website go straight to call or visit.

Step 2: get each business's public inbox and phone (tab scrape)

With the contact scraper

Open the Website Contact Scraper: Emails, Phones & WhatsApp on the Apify Store, paste column E into Websites or domains (plain list) and use this input (JSON tab):

{
  "urls": ["example-bakery.co.uk", "sample-garage.co.uk", "demo-toys.co.uk"],
  "maxPagesPerSite": 4,
  "defaultCountry": "GB",
  "checkEmailMx": true,
  "includePersonalEmails": false,
  "includePersonProfiles": false
}

• Set defaultCountry to your own country (GB, IN, US, DE...) so local phone numbers without a country code are read correctly.
• Keep includePersonalEmails and includePersonProfiles off. Addresses that identify one person are dropped and only counted; for a sponsor ask the shop's shared inbox or phone is the right door anyway.
• Four pages per site (homepage plus the most contact-like pages) is the default and is usually enough. You pay only for pages actually fetched; sites skipped because of robots.txt or their terms are not charged.
• Already have the businesses from a Google Maps scrape on Apify? Put that run's dataset ID in Enrich an Apify dataset (datasetId) instead of the plain list. The scraper reads each item's website, visits each site once and copies the business name and address into sourceItems.

When the run finishes, export the dataset as CSV, then in your sheet use File → Import → Upload, "Insert new sheet", and name the tab scrape. Do not rename the headers. Apify flattens lists into numbered columns such as emails/0/email, emails/0/mxValid, phones/0/phone and socials/whatsapp/0/url; the formulas find them by header name, so column order does not matter.

Free, without the scraper

Make a scrape tab with the headers domain, status, emails/0/email, phones/0/phone and socials/whatsapp/0/url, open each business's contact page and type what you see, with ok in status. Slower, but the same formulas work.

Step 3: the asks tab

A2 and B2 come from the list tab (=list!A2, =list!E2); E2 and F2 too (=list!C2, =list!D2). For the contact columns use this one pattern, changing only the header in quotes:

=IFERROR(INDEX(scrape!$A:$ZZ,
  MATCH($B2, INDEX(scrape!$A:$ZZ, 0, MATCH("domain", scrape!$1:$1, 0)), 0),
  MATCH("emails/0/email", scrape!$1:$1, 0)), "")

Columns G to I are typed by the volunteer: Asked on (a date), Answer (yes, no or blank) and Promised (the cash amount, or your estimate of the prize's value, as a number).

Next step in J2:

=IF(A2="","",
 IF(H2="yes", IF(N2="", "thank them", "done"),
 IF(H2="no", "done",
 IF(G2="", IF(AND(C2="", D2=""), "call or visit", "ask now"),
 IF(TODAY()-G2>=7, "follow up today", "wait")))))

Follow up in K2: =IF(OR(G2="", H2<>""), "", G2+7). Add column N Thanked on and type the date when you send the thank-you; the row then shows done. Seven days is a starting point: small shops are busy, so one polite reminder after a week is usually enough, and two is the most.

To give each volunteer their own list, use a filter view on column F (Asked by), or in a new tab: =FILTER(asks!A2:K, asks!F2:F="Anna", asks!J2:J<>"done").

Step 4: the totals tab

• A2 to A4: cash sponsor, raffle prize, in-kind
• B2 Asked: =COUNTIFS(asks!E:E, A2, asks!G:G, "<>")
• C2 Yes: =COUNTIFS(asks!E:E, A2, asks!H:H, "yes")
• D2 Promised: =SUMIFS(asks!I:I, asks!E:E, A2, asks!H:H, "yes")
• E2 Target: type your committee's goal
• F2 Still needed: =MAX(0, E2-D2)

What the status values mean

The ask that gets a yes

One short, personal message per business, from a named volunteer, about one event. For example:

Subject: Raffle prize for the Greenfield School winter fair, Sat 5 Dec

Hello,

I'm Anna, a parent at Greenfield School and on the fair committee.
Our winter fair raises money for new library books, and many of our
families shop with you. Would you donate a raffle prize? Any size helps,
and we will thank you by name on the prize table, in the fair programme
and in the newsletter to families.

If yes, I can collect it any day before 3 Dec. If now is not a good
time, just reply "no" and I won't write again.

Thank you,
Anna (Greenfield School PTA), 07xxx xxxxxx

• Say what the money is for, what you offer back (thanks by name, a logo on the banner) and a collection date. Only offer what you will really do.
• Give a plain way to say no, and honour it: mark the row no so nobody asks again.
• For a business with no inbox, a short visit at a quiet time works better than a cold call.
• Thank everyone who says yes after the event, with the total raised. That is what makes next year's ask easy.

Before you write to anyone

• Rules differ by country. In Germany, for example, UWG section 7(2) no. 2 treats advertising by email without the addressee's prior express consent as an unreasonable nuisance, and that applies to businesses as well as consumers. Whether a sponsor request counts as advertising depends on the case, so in consent-first countries the safer route is a visit or a phone call. Elsewhere, check the local rules.
• Shared inboxes can still reach a person. Work emails and numbers of identifiable people are personal data under the GDPR and India's DPDP Act 2023. Keep the sheet to what the event needs, share it only with the committee, and delete it or archive it after the event.
• In India, unsolicited commercial calls and SMS are restricted under TRAI rules; WhatsApp has its own business messaging policies.

General information, not legal advice.

Check before you send

• Every business on the list has a real link to your event or your families.
• Each row has one volunteer in Asked by, so nobody gets two asks.
• Domains in column B match the businesses' real websites (spot-check five).
• Your message names the event, the date, the cause and a way to say no.
• Rows marked no stay no.

Partner programme opening soon

Partner programme opening soon: join the free waitlist. Planned terms are 50% of each referred sale (75% once you have 5+ paying customers), single level, paid through Gumroad only from revenue received.

Sources

• Contact scraper input and output fields (urls, datasetId, maxPagesPerSite, defaultCountry, checkEmailMx, includePersonalEmails, includePersonProfiles; domain, status, emails, phones, socials, sourceItems): Apify Store page (input schema and README)
• Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG), section 7: gesetze-im-internet.de/uwg_2004/__7.html
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India): meity.gov.in

Related

• Trade fair exhibitor contact sheet
• Clean an Apify contact scrape into a call sheet
• Get a business website's WhatsApp and social links

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