I am involved in a philanthropic organization that is trying to help
aid the perseuted people in southern Sudan.  We would like to send
medical aid supplies (literally ANYTHING - bandages, vaccines, drugs,
whatever).  I understand that many of the big bio-pharmacuetical
companies here in the Silicon Valley give a certain amount of these
types of things away for free to charities/orgs like mine.  How do I
go about contacting these companies?  Who are they?  What do I need? 
Any help on this would be great. Thank you!

Hi,

Your cause sounds like a good one and I'm glad you are doing
your homework before starting out. One of the main pages you
may want to check out before getting too heavily into it
is the excellent educations resource on drug donations put 
together by a consortium of international NGOs.

http://www.drugdonations.org/eng/index.html

Their links page specifically links to pharmaceutical 
companies that have provided drug donations in the 
past, though not necessarily in your area. Their "good donation
practices" section will be helpful for you if you are
approaching companies who may not have donated medical supplies in the
past. The Partnership for Quality Medical Donations has a 
simlarly good list here:

http://www.pqmd.org/guidelines.html

Some information about tax benefits to companies who donate drugs and
mnedical supplies can be found here:

http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/econ/taxcode.html

Also, when planning a relief aid project, getting in touch with
other aid agencies who may be trying to do the same work you are, is
always helpful, both to make sure you are not working at
cross-purposes
as well as to see if you have resources to assist one another.
Agencies that typically offer relief of this kind [though not
necessarily
the Sudan] include the Bay Area Red Cross [ http://www.sfbay.org/ ] as
well
as many others. Here is a list that you can use for networking and
idea sharing:

http://www.dfmassachi.net/list012000.html

As far as reaching your audience, I would second rebecca's suggestion
that
you widen your net somewhat, and at least try to contact people
outside of
your specific geographical area, if only for practice. See if anyone
in your
organization has any contacts first and use those as a starting point.

In addition to rebecca's resources, here is a list of the largest Bay
Area
biotech and biopharmaceutical firms in the area, including websites.

http://icc.ucdavis.edu/areas/hbs/biotechlist.htm

Make sure you have a letter of introduction, some promotional
materials
explaining your organization and come with an attitude of what you can
do for
them in addition to what they can do for you. Show that you have done
your
homework and have seen a demonstrated need for the products and
services
that you are asking for. Arriving with a wishlist, even if some of the
requests are unreasonable, will always beat "well, I don't know, what
have you got?" 

Many of the organizations in your local area that probably receive
drug and medical supply donations [this is true in Seattle, for
example]
are the health care clinics. You may want to tactfully approach them
and
see if they are willing to share their donor lists in exchange for
some local assistance from your organization, or devise a partnership
between
their organization and your organization to route medical supplies
most
effectively to the various populations that are needing them.

Networking with other Sudanese relief efforts is an additional
piece of the pie. Many organizations have been working in the Sudan
for
years and would probably enjoy and opportunity to share their skills
and
give you some advice. Here are a few links to agencies that you could
contact.

Presbyterian World Service & Development 
     http://www.presbycan.ca/pwsd/appsudan.htm
The World Food Program
     http://www.wfp.org/
Action Against Hunger
     http://www.aah-usa.org/
Relief Web also has Sudanese updates that outline some of the
organizations involved
     http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vLCE/573414C7445E91DB85256AD80066BB0E?OpenDocument&StartKey=Sudan&ExpandView

I hope this is all helpful for you and that your organization can make
good
use of it, best of luck!

jessamyn-ga

google searches

"relief aid" sudan
     ://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&querytime=MBQvB&q=%22relief+aid%22+sudan
"drug donations" "bay area"
     ://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&q=%22drug+donations%22+bay+area
"biotech firms" "bay area"
     ://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&querytime=MBQ0B&q=%22biotech+firms%22+%22bay+area%22

Good job!  Thank you goes out to the researcher and commenter. :)

For starters, here's a list of major pharmecutical companies (last
updated 4/11/02), linked to their sites:

http://druginfo.creighton.edu/links/drugcomp.htm

This will take you to a similar list for the San Fransisco area
specifically (a long link, but it works!):

http://www.smartpages.com/directory/search.jhtml?Tag=health&DirectoryVerified=San+Francisco&CityVerified=San+Francisco&StateVerified=CA&DirectoryStateVerified=CA&AreaCodeVerified=&ZipVerified=&HeadingCodeVerified=8002247&HeadingDesc=Pharmaceutical+Products-Whol+%26+Mfrs&LocType=11&QueryString=p&AddressChoice=&Radius=&QueryType=1&DirAvail=true&From=&ClearLevel=HeadingValidation&TotalRows=0

All major companies have a contact person who handles requests for
donations to Non-Profit ro Not for Profit organizations, usually
through the Sales Dept. A little searching on their websites - through
the 'Contact' option - will get you on the road to the right person. 
(I work with a NFP organization and have inquired after/gotten
donations on a small scale from various kinds and sizes of companies
that way.)  You may have better luck with smaller companies, as they
receive fewer such requests.

They will most likely ask for a faxed request on letterhead, with your
Federal Tax ID #, detailing your request and its intended use (you may
want to prepare a form letter along these lines, if you have not
already, to be customized for each company.) They will no doubt give
you further details on their individual processes based on your
particular project.

May I sugegst that you consider (again, if you have not already)
starting with a few companies outside the geographical area you're
targeting, so that you can get the hang of it and know what questions
to expect before you contact your actual targets.

I hope this is of some help!

One more thing... you can use that second link to search for companies
in other cities/areas as well.  Best of luck with your wonderful
project!

There are a number of organisations globally starting to use the
internet to co-ordinate charity work around the globe. One such site
that I'm aware of is Reuters Alertnet:

http://www.alertnet.org/
Although they are mostly aimed at charity workers "in the field" they
seem to be a large enough organisation that if a smaller charity wants
to join they will be happy to share resources and information.