Review businesses that apply to work with you
Local businesses can apply to work your events, sponsor them, or both. One queue holds their applications, and approving one puts them on your partner list.
Where it lives Where it lives: Overview → partner applications alert
Where applications come from
While vendors or sponsors are part of your plan, your neighborhood's public page shows a Local businesses section with a "Partner with" button. A business says whether it wants to work events for pay, sponsor community events, or both, and tells you what it offers. If it isn't signed in, it confirms its email first; you only ever see confirmed applications. A business can apply to several neighborhoods at once, and each one decides for itself.
If you require proof of insurance, the Local businesses section mentions it, so vendors know before they apply.
Find the ones waiting on you
New applications don't arrive by email. They show up as a purple count beside both Vendors and Sponsors in the sidebar; on both of those pages, the Partner applications button at the top carries the same count and opens the queue. They also appear as a "partner applications to review" alert on your Overview whose Review link opens the first one. The applications page splits them into Awaiting your decision and Decided, each row showing what the business wants to do, its contact, and the date it applied.
The count is the same on Vendors and Sponsors because there is one queue for both. A business that wants to do both is a single application.
Read the application
An application shows the business, what it wants to do, its location and contact details, what it offers, and its message to you. "Also applied to" lists other neighborhoods it asked and where each stands. If a business with the same contact email already exists, "Possible existing business" links to it, so you don't create a duplicate.
If it's a business you already know, declining with a note pointing at their existing profile is cleaner than approving a second copy.
Approve it
Approve (you'll be asked to confirm) adds the business to your partner list, or leaves it there if you had already added it yourself. If this is its first approval anywhere, it also creates the business's public vendor or sponsor profile and emails its management invitation. The applicant is told either way, and can reply to you by email. Once decided, the page records who made the call and when, with a link to the business on your partner list.
If your plan no longer includes vendors or sponsors, approval is refused with a message instead of adding a partner to a feature you can't use.
Or decline it, with a note
Under "Decline with an optional note", write a line the applicant will read (for example, that you already have a bakery partner this season) and click Decline. The note is emailed to them with replies going to you. It isn't stored, so keep your own copy if it matters.
Keep your partner list tidy
Approved businesses land on Your partners on the Vendors and Sponsors pages. All businesses searches everyone on the platform, "Add to partners" brings one onto your list, and "Remove from partners" takes one off without touching its profile or event history. Tags on each row are your own labels (for example "food" or "returning"), shared between vendors and sponsors and searchable when you pick vendors.
Removing a business from your partners doesn't unlink it from events it already works. That stays on each event's Vendors or Sponsors page.
Related guides
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