Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

No, Not with the entire team. Just a few..

This year we have about 20 kids. The $500 (not exactly, I think the real number is like $520) came from 5 kids, and I myself have got $270 of it from 3 businesses and I have our teams packets at 3 different businesses currently waiting to hear back from them.

Im not trying to take out frustration on anyone, I just don't get it. Sorry for hijacking this topic =/

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

You haven't. Your team is struggling to be self-sustaining. You are spot on.

Jane

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

It sounds like you have the desire, but the results aren't happening the way you like. You might want to do some research with other teams to find fundraising strategies that work for your team. It also sounds like you need to make the whole team aware of what needs to be raised, what they need to raise, and what methods you already thought of.

We raised 63k in 09, 35k last year, and are well on our way to 55k+ this year. In a poor agricultural town, with a small team. We're all normal people, it's just that the entire team is made aware of what we need to fundraise, and everyone is responsible for raising it (and we're willing to TRY anything).

Trust me, you get your ducks in a row, and you'll be raising way more than $5k easily.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

I tried convincing the mentor to make a rule along the lines of each student is responsible for raising $100 and involving 3 businesses. He cut it down to $50 and one business. We have a packet that we made for them to take around to businesses, they just seem to not want to do it.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Brandon-

The problems you are having are not isolated to your team, I'm sure you are aware of that. This thread started because there are obviously issues with sustaining FRC teams, which is something your team is encountering as we speak.

I know you mentioned you're not mad at the teams that raise $30K+, but you have to understand what many of those teams do in this offseason. These teams work constantly to go after businesses, grants, the government and achieve their goal for each year. Use it as inspiration, and keep pushing forward with the ideal goal being to become a sustainable team that can reach its financial goals year after year.

The NASA grant is a blessing, it does not hurt a team in the long run. The problem is, teams don't anticipate the drop off in funding and then are left high and dry with no plan. That is entirely the fault of the team who received the grant, not NASA for trying to get a team up and running.

In Boston, there are many teams who started from a very large donation from a foundation (~$300K) which my team helped secure. The teams that started on this grant had their registration fee paid for their first 3 years of existence. After that, the teams were on their own. The first teams in this program were started around 5 years ago and their stories are mixed. Some have thrived and developed into self-sustaining FRC teams that we are all proud of. Others have shriveled and died as soon as the funding was cut. Some still live on, but struggle to stay afloat year after year.

It's the responsibility of the teams to keep themselves going after they lose funding. I know many 10+ year veteran teams who have lost their sponsor that was with them on day 1. Some of these sponsors provided $10K+ to the veteran teams. My home team (11) lost our sponsor my senior year of high school. Our team was left with no funding, but it inadvertently started a fire under our you-know-whats. We blanketed the area with letters and demos, and before we knew it we were bringing in 3X the amount of money we did when we had our one big sponsor.

The point is, every team has to face the same challenge. For some teams its easier than others, definitely. However, it doesn't mean your situation is impossible, or that it hasn't been conquered before. Reaching out to the FIRST community is a great start to get tips on how to not only stay afloat, but thrive in your current situation.

I wish you the best of luck, and keep up the hard work.

-Brando

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Fundraising is a bit like digging a well. Rivers, springs, ponds are easy to unerstand, you can see the water with your own eyes (these are grants). Unfortunately, in dry seasons, streams and ponds dry up.
Imagine however trying to explain to someone that if they put a ton of work into digging a hole, deep into the ground (not water), they could find water. That would sound absolutely crazy to them. Yet somehow, we have a lot of wells because they work. Don't be upset with the village that dug theeir well, but instead ask them how they knew where to find water. Many will tell you, "Well, first we tried a lot of things, most of which didn't work. Then we had success with a couple things and worked on doing those better."

As far as getting the kids motivated, put yourself in there shoes and ask 2 questions "Do you have the ability?", "Is it worth it?".


IKE

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Brandon, I think this link is worth mentioning here. Jenny Beatty posted it in another thread. NEMO isn't just another 4 letter acronym, it really helps. Many good bullet points from NEMO's site regarding fundraising are listed in the slide set Branding, Publicity and Fundraising by Sharlene Brown and Bill Duncan. My particularly favorite slide is the tiered approach via sponsorship levels, which also show what a sponsor can expect in return.

http://www.mdfirst.org/programs/firs...ining-day.html

Hope this helps you as much as it's helped us. FRC teams are really like small businesses (small NPO's actually) with few options to generate income -- yet we can't dismiss what's available to us because the opportunities are enough to get us through.

I think part of the frustration is that the bar to FRC entry is exceptionally high relative to the incomes of many communities.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Thanks for the shout out about NEMO, but just a clarification. The link goes to the mdfirst.org website and the sessions that were held this past Sat. for the Maryland teams (and any out of state team who asked to attend) hosted by the Baltimore Area Alliance teams. There will be more sessions posted. Bill is the new Asst. RD for Maryland and Sharlene is the VISTA. Bill brings a lot of marketing experience to his new position with FIRST. (He also served as the VISTA last year in MD.) He has also done a great job with the website.

But I agree, this ppt is a GREAT resource!

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

I agree that the NASA grant is great and the fact that teams struggle after the grant is not NASA faults. But, what if the NASA grant (and other grants) required teams to create a fundrasing/sponsership plan before recieving the money? The plan doesn't have to be extremely detailed, but something so the team understands that eventually they will be responsible for funding their team.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

The 2nd year NASA grant requires that teams have already raised 6k for themselves.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

We had the NASA grant for 3 years and have never raised that much..

I have wrote an e-mail to the CS department at NJIT (I have some connections with them, so its worth a shot) that I'm afraid to send before I have someone look over it. Would anyone be willing to...?

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

I feel your pain....our team has been having a really tough year financially, despite efforts that started in the summer. Like someone said earlier, it is kinda tough to hear a team that's struggling with ~30K when our team habitually coasts on $5,000 plus maybe $600 for supplies, and we're having issues with that this year.

Part of the problem is that our school, besides small, is private and so the school can barely provide anything towards our team [people tend to think private-schooled kids are rolling in money, but they really aren't].

And oh gosh the NASA grant. We all had a very tough day today, we learned that we forgot to have our principal send the email to NASA certifying that we LOST our sponsor....just one SENTENCE added to the email certifying need for funding, was all that was needed, but we forgot it. We probably lost our chance at the grant because of that. We're beating ourselves up over that right now.

This is my senior year, I've absolutely loved FIRST and I really want to see our team have the chance to participate; there's a lot of new kids who are really excited, but don't have any clue what awesomeness they're in for. I do NOT want them to be unable to do FIRST because of a $1600 shortfall in funding. But it's getting really tense right now.

One problem we're facing this year is that most of our team graduated. It's hard to get corporate sponsorship when most of the team barely knows what FIRST's about. I [not to blow my own horn] have done an awful lot, but it still isn't enough and one person can't do everything.


This was going to be a great year: we have a 60% girls team, lots of students in all grades, a mentoring program worked out with the FLL teams we started at our school, several new mentors....lots of really awesome and enthused kids on the team. I really can't express how much I want them to be able to succeed! We've got a lot of exchange students too, think how cool for them to be able to take these memories back home. But now it's looking like we may not be able to afford FIRST.



Just tonight on CD I saw a post from an FRC team that can now only afford to do FTC. I'm really sad for that, and for all the other struggling teams out there right now. :(

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

My team has had similar experiences but somehow we have managed to make it through each year. According to what you describe you seem to have a really good program. It would be a real shame for a program like that to disappear for something like that. I hope you somehow manage to secure that funding.

For a few years my team all but disappeared when we lost school support. We moved into one of the team members garages for building and all of our 10+ Lego programs disappeared. At the same time the other team in our city failed after their NASA grant expired (we have since combined into one big team). To add to the hurt our main mentor ended up changing companies after my first season and our team was on its own. We did not know we would be able to participate until literally hours before the deadline to pay. Somehow we the money came through and we survived.

This year for us is a different story. We have reached out to our community (luckily we have a large industrial center) and they have supported us. Our funding has increased greatly despite losing more than half of our funding last-year when our sponsor was bought-out. We have worked non-stop over the summer and during the school year meeting weekly for fundraising. We have already gotten guarantees for ~12.5 thousand this year. We are lucky because we are the only team in our area and have a lot of businesses to reach out too. The reason this changed was that we got a new mentor who helped us set up the team like a business and taught us how to go about getting sponsors.

Hearing about teams going under due to funding is very saddening to me, because of how close my team came to that. I really hope that your team pulls through.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Thanks man :) It's good to hear the success stories too. We had one last year, heard about the NASA grant only days before it was due, our coach rammed it through in a hurry and somehow it came together. Hoping things work out this year.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Why do you think it's sad when a team chooses a more affordable program than FRC? I've mentored FRC, VRC, and FTC teams for the last seven years, and I personally believe that all of them can achieve the goal of inspiring students to pursue further education and careers in STEM fields. In a lot of ways, FRC makes the least sense (more expensive, more expensive per person, fewer chances to play, least sustainable, and lowest hands-on engineering ratio) of the three. This isn't FRC-bashing, as the program does have some unique positives, but I think it is wrong to assume that going to VRC or FTC is a step backwards.

I am far happier, and our students are thriving, in a VRC program that is well-funded, active, and successful. I've been on an FRC team on a shoestring and it isn't much fun. VRC and FTC are legitimate alternatives to FRC, especially for programs interested in value for the money invested. This also applies to BEST, MATES, and a variety of other programs, by the way. I know CD is FRC-centric, but it doesn't hurt to consider alternatives.