Re: Big Big Problem
 

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

Re: Big Big Problem
 

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

Re: Big Big Problem
 

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.

Re: Big Big Problem
 

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.

Re: Easy 501-C-3 Set-up
 

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.

Re: Easy 501-C-3 Set-up
 

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.

Re: Big Big Problem
 

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.

Re: Big Big Problem
 

Funny, one of our larger sponsors (PEC) also is our schools main donor.... I guess were lucky because that money is really usefull!

Re: Big Big Problem
 

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.