Big Big Problem

[Ronald_raygun]

Our school has unfortunately banned the clubs to solicit for donations. (sponsorship, basically) Has anyone thought of a way to circumvent this?

I'm thinking of incorporating the team into a non-profit. so we can still be sponsored.

I also know that various fundraisers exist and we need much more than the yields they have.

Any suggestions?

[Adam Richards]

Our school has unfortunately banned the clubs to solicit for donations. (sponsorship, basically) Has anyone thought of a way to circumvent this?

I'm thinking of incorporating the team into a non-profit. so we can still be sponsored.

I also know that various fundraisers exist and we need much more than the yields they have.

Any suggestions?
Have you looked into creating a booster club - an organization not officially affiliated with your school's club that fundraises and then 'donates' the money into the club?

[Alan Anderson]

Our school has unfortunately banned the clubs to solicit for donations. (sponsorship, basically) Has anyone thought of a way to circumvent this?
Get your robotics group classified as a team instead of a club. :)

I'd be wary of trying to find ways around a school rule. You'd probably be much better off negotiating with the rulemakers, either to get a specific exception for robotics, or to identify a different way for you to get the funding you need without breaking the rules.

(One "different way" might be for a separate parents' organization to do the solicitations, rather than the robotics team itself, but I'd still run it past the school before doing it.)

[JohnBoucher]

Silly question, but it needs to be asked.. Did they offer to foot the bill?

Have you explained what how much this deal costs and what the rewards are? We are very open with the school. We are neither a club or a sport, we really are in a grey area and we do not get a dime from the school. We are a 501(c)(3) and the school encourages us to get the community involved through sponsorships.

Please join NEMO and pick their brains. Their support in this area is terrific. There is a conference where you can meet with them coming up on 10/01/05 in Worcester, MA.

jb

Our school has unfortunately banned the clubs to solicit for donations. (sponsorship, basically) Has anyone thought of a way to circumvent this?

I'm thinking of incorporating the team into a non-profit. so we can still be sponsored.

I also know that various fundraisers exist and we need much more than the yields they have.

Any suggestions?

[Beth Sweet]

Well, I pretty much doubt that any other group in your school has anywhere near the kind of budget that your team runs on. Perhaps it would be appropriate to talk to your school's administration and remind them that this is a program that makes their students exceptionally prepared for the real world, gives them a real step up and if they don't allow your group to solicit sponsorship, they will be shutting down your program.

If they still are not interested in changing their policy, my best advice would be to pull your affiliation with the school. Get the students and just don't affiliate yourself with them. If the school leaves you no other choice, you've gotta do it.

[sanddrag]

Say you are the Larryville High School Robotics Club/Team. What you should do, is form the Larryville Robotics Enthusiasts Group. By form, I mean not much more than call yourselves by that name and make sure it is not affiliated with the school except that students from the school are part of it. Then when you are fundraising, you are the Larryville Robotics Enthusiasts Group and then they collect all the money and make one big donation to the Larryville High School Robotics Club/Team which builds the robot.

Basically, just disassociate yourselves from the school for only the purposes of fundraising, and then have that disassociated group relay the money to the school club/team. You may want to have that group become a nonprofit though.

[Wayne C.]

Have your parents get together and create a parents booster/ support group and in the future have them incorporate and go for 401-C3 status. Given that they will have a much higher per child cost if you CAN'T accept donations it is in their interest to do so.

I would also go to the school administration and school board with a lot of FIRST info and expense information. Have all the parents available to force the issue home. Maybe the school board would jump at the opportunity to please the parents for just a few thousand dollars.....

Or they might back off when the sponsors make their offers and the parents are insistent..

Usually schools don't want kids going door to door soliciting money from the community. It is dangerous for the kids and makes the school look bad (since defeating school budgets is the biggest part of community involvement schools see). But frankly, parents approach adults better and you really should get them moving.

A team needs adults. Make sure it is their team as much as yours.

WC :cool:

[sciguy125]

Our school has unfortunately banned the clubs to solicit for donations. (sponsorship, basically) Has anyone thought of a way to circumvent this?
At our school, we're not allowed to solicit either. As far as I know, no student organizations are allowed to. Clubs are allowed to have on-campus fundraisers though. We've talked to the administration about this several times, but it's all about politics. If we ask some company for $10k, the school won't be able to ask them for $50k later on for other things. And we're not allowed to solicit parents either. The rule is that we're not allowed to ask. But, if they happen to find out about us and donate something, they can request that their donation go directly to the robotics club. Again, we're not allowed to ask for donations, but if they find out that we are in need and want to give us something it would be rude to refuse them.

If we wanted full autonomy to be free to solicit donations, we won't be allowed to associate ourselves with the school. We could probably still use the facilities, but not the name.

Edit:
Addendum: We also found something interesting. Each club gets some amount of money from the school. The robotics club was an off shoot of the science club. I don't know if it's still true this year, but last year, both clubs existed on paper. Therefore, both clubs got money even though they were the same organization. This money is also in addition to the money the school throws our way for FIRST.

[Ronald_raygun]

Thank you everyone for your quick reply.

A booster club may be the answer, but I'll run it by my co.

Getting our robotics club classified as a team is possible, but unlikely.

The Parent Teacher's Association doesn't help much except hold our money. Sure I may be able to speak with the heads.

The only thing that the school provides is a facility to store and build the robot. We are still allowed to use those facilities. The main hurdle is that we cannot solicit various companies for donations. (Sponsorships they do consifer donations)

Negotiating with the admins seems the best way to go. But first I need to find out who made the rule. :)


Changing the name of our team may help. But I'm not too familiar with FIRST's policy about changing team's names and therefore losing the ability to pre register year after year after year. (I'm on Team 19)

[KathieK]

Please join NEMO and pick their brains. Their support in this area is terrific. There is a conference where you can meet with them coming up on 10/01/05 in Worcester, MA. Your team leader was recently sent information about the Southern New England Conference (http://www.nefirst.org) which contains a presentation on fundraising. Each team may send up to 3 representatives to the conference. I also encourage any mentors on the team who deal with non-engineering topics to join NEMO (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/papers.php?s=&action=single&paperid=499) as you do not have anyone from your team in NEMO yet. We will also be holding a NEMO workshop at Bash @ the Beach. Please PM/e-mail me for more information about how we can help you.

[Ronald_raygun]

How about this.

We file any donations/sponorships as sales? I.e. we are selling the company advertising space on our equipment.

[sciguy125]

We file any donations/sponorships as sales?
You may want to be careful about that. If they are buying something, it's no longer a donation. People may be less willing to give if they don't get the tax breaks that come with a donation.

And did you ever find out why the school instated the rule? If it's similar to my team's situation, the school might not go for that either. Even if someone "buys" something from you, they still might see it as a contribution to your school.

[Elgin Clock]

You may want to be careful about that. If they are buying something, it's no longer a donation. People may be less willing to give if they don't get the tax breaks that come with a donation.

If they are not a 501(c)(3) it may not matter. Oh sure for you and me as far as we are concerned, it is a donation to a school club, but for some companies, a donation is base for some kind of kick back (re: tax break or writeoff) for a donation.

But the way Uncle Sam and the IRS see it is a totally different ball game.
your T's have to be crossed, and your i's dotted.

[sciguy125]

If they are not a 501(c)(3) it may not matter.
Well, I'm fairly sure our school is a 501(c)(3). The fact that our moderator was giving out tax exemption forms drives that suspicion home for me.

My understanding of the law is that nearly all schools qualify for 501(c)(3). However, I guess you also have to file paperwork to benefit from it. Is all that correct? If so, is there any reason a school wouldn't want to be a 501(c)(3)?

If your team is a separate organization, I could see why there could be some problems. It seems, however, that 19 is part of their school.

[mechanicalbrain]

623 is listed as a booster club and a nonprofit organization. It also helps in terms of getting donations since sponcers can take all the money they give you as a tax write off.

[Ronald_raygun]

mechanicalbrain
When was your team inforporated as a non-profit?

Everyone else
What is a 501(c)(3)?

As for the companies, you're right...depends on their size and willingness to be a philanthropist. :p

[Ronald_raygun]

Well, we have great news. We were granted a limited exception. Now I can start our fundraising campaign.

[Gdeaver]

After you get all that fund raising money, who holds it and controls it? Beware that school districts like to get a hold of it and control it. It usually ends up in the general building fund and has been known to disappear. If the school district insists on controlling all funds, You can sort of protect your efforts by having donors buy specific materials. Some companies much prefer to pay a specific invoice.

[dubious elise]

After you get all that fund raising money, who holds it and controls it? Beware that school districts like to get a hold of it and control it. It usually ends up in the general building fund and has been known to disappear. If the school district insists on controlling all funds, You can sort of protect your efforts by having donors buy specific materials. Some companies much prefer to pay a specific invoice.
Agreed.

This comes into play especially when booking transportation and/or hotel reservations. We simply removed our funds from the so-dubbed "school account" and we now have mentors manage an account for us. It is much more reliable for our purposes.

Obviously, this is not the only answer and all school districts are run differently. As always, be sure to look into other options before making a choice.

[ThunderChief]

Team 980 - ThunderBots has a checking account named "Friends of FIRST Team 980" that is controlled by 2 mentors. This receives T-shirt sales, sponsorships, raffle ticket sales ($5 for a Roomba vacuum cleaner).

But for donations we have a 501-C-3 "Donor Advaised Foundation" called "Lightning Edcational Foundation" that was quickly and easily set up under the National Heritage Foundation. People make checks payable to the "Lightning Edcational Foundation" which are sent to the National Heritage Foundation for deposit. National Heritage Foundation does the paperwork of sending out the donation confirmation letters for a 2 1/2 % fee. Then the Team applies for a grant to pay our big expenses like FIRST registrations, air fares and hotel. They either send a check to FIRST, etc. or to "Friends of FIRST Team 980" to reimburse payments already made.

[CJO]

We had a similar ban on fundraising. However, we convinced the school (rightly enough) that we should be allowed to seek out mentors, after all that is the point of FIRST. We would then ask (or be invited) to give presentations at various companies about the programs, and would include some pointed comments about our budget -- not actually solicit -- but include a slide like "100% of our funds come from donations, 10% from parents, 12% from company A, the rest, TBA," that and a few pointed comments usually gets companies to "offer" to give us an "unsolicited" donation. So the school takes their cut and we get the rest.

[sciguy125]

Again, we're not allowed to ask for donations, but if they find out that we are in need and want to give us something it would be rude to refuse them.
I'd like to correct that. It still holds true that if someone wants to give us money they can. If they send it through the school and they put "for robotics" on the check, we get all the money. Actually, I have a feeling that they're supposed to send all checks through the school.

However, it seems that we are allowed to solicit for donations if we clear it with the school first. The whole reason for the ban is that no student organizations are supposed to interfere with the school's target donors (present and future). If the school doesn't have any plans for our potential sponsor, they'll give us an OK to talk to them. It seems, however, that most of our potential sponsors won't be approached by the school. It looks like, at the moment, our moderator wants services and equipment rather than just money. We'll probably be targeting machine shops and high-tech companies. While the school has targeted some tech companies (I think I spotted Xilinx and Intel on some plaques), they seem to like wealthy individuals more.

[mechanicalbrain]

The whole reason for the ban is that no student organizations are supposed to interfere with the school's target donors (present and future). If the school doesn't have any plans for our potential sponsor, they'll give us an OK to talk to them.
Funny, one of our larger sponsors (PEC) also is our schools main donor.... I guess were lucky because that money is really usefull!

[sciguy125]

Funny, one of our larger sponsors (PEC) also is our schools main donor.... I guess were lucky because that money is really usefull!
Well, that's the thing, if they are giving you money, that means they are giving the school less money. Any money that goes to the school is allocated by the school. Any money that goes directly to us can only be used by us. It's just as easy to get $100k for the school (from a large company) as it is to get $10k for the robotics team (from that same company). If we ask them for money, they might be less inclined to give the school the other $90k they could have had. It's not fair for a group of 20+ students to spend $10k in one year if the school could buy $100k worth of stuff for all the students that will last for several years. However, the school can find a way to kick some extra money from the budget our way as long as they have control of it.

However, our team, against my strong opposition, seems to have doubled in size this year. I suspect that it's because of the newly created administrative branch and a large freshman interest. The school may be inclined to give us more money. If we get enough people, maybe they'll even give us a room that's bigger and not underground (and preferably not one of the above-ground rooms that still doesn't have windows).

Before you question why I don't want more people despite saying that I do, it's just because it happened too soon. We're in the middle of a massive restructuring process. A lot of people don't seem to understand how massive this change is and kept bringing people in. We're still disorganized and there's lots of new people to deal with. None of the lower level positions, where these people will end up, are ready to be filled. We've had meetings (as in "everyone get in the other room, we need to talk" meetings) every club meeting since school started. I'm afraid a lot of the newbies will leave if they get too bored before we get organized again. At least one of the new guys was questioning why we have abandoned democracy, and many of them don't seem to realize that we have. Every detail of the new structure has been planned for a reason (mostly experience). If they feel left out because we ignore their opinion, they might leave also. To bring this back to funding, if we lose people, and they tell their friends about their bad experiences, we might start to lose more people and possibly funding along with them.