Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Its sad when any team (first or otherwise) that wants to continue what they are doing cannot.
It is good that although can't do what they have done in previous years they have found an alternative.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Well, because I would be very sad if our team couldn't take part in the unique experience that is FRC. So I guess I'm sort of projecting my own opinions on to the members of that team. I'm sure FTC is a great experience [there are certainly hordes of FTC teams in Oregon :) ] but for me, a senior, it would be a huge disappointment to not be able to do FRC in my last year. For incoming freshmen, it might be a completely satisfactory project.

This is word-of-mouth, but I've heard from mentors of the 6 local FRC teams, that FTC may not be as helpful in long-term real-world engineering experience as FRC. Oregon has a really strong focus on FLL and FTC, so it's a struggle for FRC coaches and so on to keep students from being funneled off into FTC.

That being said, I'm going to try and volunteer at the local FTC tournament this year [right during FRC build season, fun fun] and I could always get hooked on that ;)

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Ok, Adam - I'll take the bait. What ARE you guys doing for fundraising? (I'm assuming you are not talking about "team dues" or corporate/business funding as in grants or "sponsorship" but fundraising from your community. If you had 20 students in '09, each student brought in $1800.00 or $150/month. Every student, every month. That's a heck of a tally.

So...

How do you do it?

-Mr. Van
Robodox

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

We bring in a good deal, I don't know the exact figure, in low dollar community grants and donations from larger businesses. Primarily $100-$500 each. A few exceptions being matching corporate grants (family donates $2k, PG&E, etc.. matches it). We do not have any long term, committed $5k+ sponsors, it's all low dollar.

The difference between what we need to raise and what we raise from that is divided among the students. This year, it's $1800. Students are responsible for raising their portion, but we do A LOT to help them. They get 100% credit for any dollar they bring in on their own (soliciting business, grants, selling items, etc...), 50% of the money from an event they plan, and a portion of the money from an event they work it. They'll do car washes, bake sales, team nights at restaurants, etc... I won't go too much into how we fundraise, because it's the same as many teams do; it's the structure we have that encourages and makes students responsible for it that works for us.

We've found if students know what they need to raise, and are given many options, it's not an issue. We've never had a student just cut us a check for their amount, but we'd accept that as well.

In the past the students are very understanding about this; Once we talk they understand this isn't free, we wish it could be free, but it isn't, and therefore they must pull their weight.

Re: Sustainability In FRC Teams
 

Heh. Thanks for sharing the management technique Adam! We will try that next May, once we've finished our current plan. In the meantime, I'll see what we can incorporate into this season.