Re: Dealing with Finances
 

This is the route that our team took, and there's probably still enough time to do it before build season starts, depending on your state laws and, possibly, how fast the state government is.

It's a two-step process:

(1) Form some sort of non-profit organization. The exact boundaries of this all vary state-by-state.

In some states, you can create what's called an "unincorporated nonprofit association" very easily -- you just need two people to say "Hey, lets do this." They will need to adopt bylaws (for the next part), but that's really about it.

In other states, you have to form a nonprofit corporation, which involves doing a filing with the state. This is a bit more complicated than setting up an unincorporated association, but not horribly.

(1.5) Get an EIN from the IRS, which you can do electronically.

(2) Ask the IRS to recognize you as a 501(c)(3). You can do this by filing a form 1023EZ with the IRS, which you can do electronically. The IRS says "you can expect to hear from us within 90 days," but they actually average about 2 weeks.

Then, you have the 501(c)(3) set up a bank account, and you're off to the races.

Total cost will be $275 - $600 depending on state. $275 is the IRS fee; the rest is whatever charge the state has.

It's not rocket science, but it's not trivial, either. If you have a lawyer among your parents, they can probably handle it if they're willing to stretch beyond their comfort zone a little bit (most lawyers don't deal with nonprofits much).

Our school district gave in to my request this year and gave us our own robotics team credit card. It took much convincing but it has been a life saver so far this year in FTC.

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Re: Dealing with Finances
 

I don't know your whole situation but this is what we do. Our school district supplies our head coach (a teacher at our high school) with a school district credit card tied to the bank account we keep our money in. So if we ever need anything right now at this very moment (which seems to be what you're worried about) we use the money from our bank account and pay for it. I don't know exactly how you manage your money but I would expect that your team has to have a bank account somewhere? And that getting a card tied to that bank account would solve your problems? It's just a matter of fundraising enough that there is always money in your account.