sponsors and Fundraising
 

For the past several years we have only had enough funds to compete with a basic robot spending only around $200 on parts and materials other than what was donated to us.

Are there any ideas on fundraisers that teams have had a huge success with? We do small things that generate small cash but would like to have a fundraiser that we are known for doing and make people want to donate to our team.

We also live in a area where the are not many big name industries around like Boeing or lockheed. Are there any teams that have the same situation and how have you overcome it?

Any help is appreciated.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

The FRC Fundraising Toolkit ought to have, literally, everything you need to know about fundraising. http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...aising-toolkit

FIRST recommends the lightbulbs, but don't do the lightbulbs. I may catch some flame for this, but the lightbulbs are a waste of time when it comes to a long term, sustainable fundraiser. You want your fundraising items to be (1) cheap and (2) expendable. I've seen teams that sell food, looms, etc.

Additionally, you can host car washes and other community service fundraisers. The benefit is two-fold; people may often donate large amounts to help out the team (one man donated $200!) and you will get to meet and talk to members of your community about the team.

You know, it can be argued that it's easier to solicit sponsorships from smaller companies and business rather than the larger ones. Lure them in by showing them the power of the program and ask them for small donations ($100 is $100). Over time, the little donations will build up, and overtime, sponsors may opt to increase their support.

The approach has to be elegant, but you'll want to get an "in" (from a parent who frequents the establishment and may know the owner/manager or someone who works there). After that, it falls onto your pitch and how well you sell the message.

- Sunny G.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

We live in an area of around 50,000. We do have some large companies like P&G and GE but they haven't been much help. We've found success with local large companies such as Manufacturing Companies. Look for local engineering firms and manufacturing companies. Here's two of our largest sponsors for example http://www.Afco-ind.com and http://redballoxygen.com

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

I will will have to take a closer look at it. I have skimmed it but I didn't see much that could have much of an impact for our team specifically. Thank you for the help!

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

We have been very successful doing what we call "can shakers". We contact local stores and ask if we can do a fundraiser outside their front door. We set up a table with FIRST and team literature, a few baked goods, and a robot. The students have two big buckets and when people come out of the stores they ask them for donations. We usually make about $500 at each of these events. They are easy and a great way to also spread FIRST in the community as the robot creates a lot of interest, with the students answering all kinds of questions. We have even had a few companies sponsor us based off of first finding out about the robotics program from these events.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

That sounds like a great idea! A great way to spread FIRST and make some money!

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

We do about 6 of these a year, 3 in the fall and 3 in the spring, so they raise about $3,000. We also use it as a kind of service requirement for the team members. Students are encouraged to signup to volunteer at these events and we keep track of who is putting in hours. We have a large team and this helps us to gauge student's devotion to the team.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

We are in our second year of the patron book that is listed in the tool kit. Our first year, we raised around $3500. Last check, a couple of weeks ago, we are over $6700. A special thanks to Team 1511 for helping us get it going.;)

Mr. Mike

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

To learn more about the Toolkit resources you can take a look at the "Ask An Expert Call" focused on the Fundraising Toolkit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWWPJ03o5Dc

It walks through how to use the Toolkit, key pieces to take a look at, etc.

If you look over the Toolkit and can't find any useful resources or feel something is missing let me know and I'll see if it can be added.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

Our team tries hard to have really good relationship with the school PTA. If you can get your team into school fundraisers, it will increase the visibility of your team, expose your team to potential sponsors, and if you are lucky, your team could make a percentage of the profits.

A huge source of fundraising on our team comes from a letter writing campaign. We have each of our students write five letters to near-by companies and family members telling them what FRC does for us and asking for support. Even for small teams, this can raise a lot of money.

Recently, we have started ramping-up business outreach. By having our students ask around for connections to near-by companies, we try and arrange presentations to these companies. These presentations are mostly about FRC as a program, but we also ask for some support. Even if they don't donate, these outreach presentations are still spreading FIRST.

Also, feel free to message me if you are interested in more in-depth information on how we do these campaigns.

Good luck on your funding!

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

Ok, our team has done this several times, and it usually seems to work really well! Try and get members of the team to donate gift certificates or coupons for well known services and put them in a basket. Around a holiday where people usually give gifts(or not it's usually just easier to get people to participate)set up a time with a local store/restaurant where you can stand outside and hold a raffle for the basket. A dollar for a ticket or so always works! The tickets can be bought cheap or you can use the Microsoft template to print your own. The idea works nicely and people seem to be more giving when there is something they can possibly get out of it(unfortunately). Just make sure to bring paper and pens so that you can mark down their contact information for the raffle, otherwise we just print their name and number on the back of the raffle ticket. Good luck! I hope this works for you~

Also, if you have any local sponsors, or even i you just ask around, there should be some stores/restaurants/vendors willing to give you the gift certificates and coupons for free. :)

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

One plan we have is to get our drive train up and running as soon as possible and drive it to places we ask for funding. Nothing is more powerful than a running machine to convey a message. You can't hear motors whining in an e-mail, and you can't see gears turning on a phone call.

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

I think depending on a fundraisers that consist of only kids selling something is the wrong way to go. Those fundraisers are important because the students feel the front line involvement; however, many times it ends up being the relatives bearing the burden. You need a mixed attack. We are a town of 18,000 in the middle of Oklahoma and I try to raise at least 30K a year. In our rookie year it was 45K with grants. It is also a town with a high rate of poverty. We do have some big industries, but they have not been as forthcoming as the smaller companies that are locally owned. First go to the local rotary club witha presentation. That is where you will find the local business owners. On the Glenwood Spring website http://www.ci.glenwood-springs.co.us/ is a link to the Chamber of Commerce. You have 12 engineering companies listed. Contact them all. One of the benefits of Colorado (having lived there for 10 years and still kicking myself because we left :mad: ) is that you have wealthy retirees or business owners that can afford to live further out. They have the money and believe in education. Find a way to get to them with your message. Find a mentor that can spend full time making contents. We have a locally owned hardware store that donates the nuts, bolts etc that we need for about $500/ year.

Make sure that your name is constantly in the paper or on the radio so that people know you and what you do. My background is engineering so I attacked it as an engineer. I figured out who and what I needed to know. Read books and studied successful teams documentation. There are a lot of fundraising books on Amazon. You need to have packets ready to go so you can respond instantly to a lead.

Ask big. If you ask for $100, that is what they will give you, but if you ask for $1000 you might get it and you will probably get at least $100 to send you away. I used jigsaw.com now https://www.salesforce.com to start. That will tell you companies in your area and how much they make in a year and you can base your ask on that.

Train a group of kids to go with you. They can observe and interact as time goes on.

It is also all about contacts. I am the spouse of the city manager. I am introduced to the people who run the town. When I meet someone, I proceed to "spew" at them about FIRST. When my husband interviewed for the job, I talked about robotics at the reception. That paved the way. I am now working with one the fathers of a team member who works with new business at the bank and can point me to business to ask. The Chamber can use the fact that they have a robotics team to lure new business to town. We promote our team by talking about the fact that we can help produce more technologically literate residents that they can hire for the future. Find someone that knows the residents and where the money is hidden. Main street businesses get hit up all the time by every sports team. Nobody goes to the little engineering company. I have gone to the most nondescript buildings and come out with $2500.

We did a mailing this year targeting everyone in the Chamber of Commerce directory, and got in about $2000. We sent out a sponsorship sheet with different levels. My mistake is that I had an option of $100 dollars. I think if I had put it at $500 as the lowest, all of my $100 donations would have been $500. Ask big. They can only say no, but they might say yes. And "no" may not mean "no" forever.

Also do not go in with the attitude that you are asking for charity. You provide a needed service to the community. And you directly affect the community. You have the ability to transform the city and the graduates they produce. Bring that into your presentations.

Good luck,
Ann

Re: sponsors and Fundraising
 

Team 1802 has started to do nights at local fast food restaurants and generally makes a couple hundred through each of those. Common ones are Culver's and Chick-fil-A, but Panda Express, Sonic and Jack-n-the-Box does it as well. I also know Chuckie Cheeses used to do it as well if you have younger crowd to market to. Usually these nights are set up in advance and your team would pass out flyers asking people to come to the fast food place on that night between certain hours. Sometimes he location will do x percent off their total sales others the customer physically has to hand them the flyer. This is normally easy to set up and very little work for a couple hundred dollar profit.

Another thing we did for years (until we took over) was help set up and run a local craft show. This was a few hours the night before the craft show setting up and prepping for the following day. The day of the craft show the students would help the crafters bring their items in and helped with general things around the show including the concessions stand. When the show was over the students would help the crafters pack up and get everything back out to their vehicles. The organization running this was apart of the school and normally provided $200 to $300 for the services. You could check with local craft shows to see if this is something they would be willing to do to help out local youth.

One thing I did this past season was one day after school I picked up a few students and we went out to local small businesses/offices and a few larger chain stores and provided them with a sponsorship letter that explained who we were and that we were trying to come up with the funds to purchase the smaller c-RIO. This can be tedious going from location to location saying the same thing over and over and being told that they will have to pass it along. We did eventually find one doctors office that agreed to help us purchase it. They gave a base contribution but said if we did not find anyone else they would help for the rest of it. Small mom and pop businesses, while they don't always have the profits that big box stores do, can be willing to help in small forms, even $25 helps.

That was a very helpful response. I was just struck by it. Our team doesn't have too many problems with fund raising, but can I use this post to help other teams in our area?