[ebarker]

Treat the administration support and the financial / 501(c)3 items as two different entities.

You want the administration and the whole school to be supportive of the team regardless of how the finances are handled.

There is a broad definition of support. It could be moral, financial, space, or other.

Regarding the financials - the school could make a decision to support your money handling even if they don't care much for the team. There are actually a lot of teams in this position.

If the school doesn't want to handle money, you could probably become a 4-H team and let the local 4-H chapter handle the money. Another agent that might could handle the money is the Community Foundation of Southern Arizon.

Having your own 501(c)3 has its benefits but there is a management overhead that has to be handled. It isn't a license for financial looseness and you will have to properly be prepared to handle money and make annual IRS filings.

Long term having your own 501(c)3 is the way to go but your team has a lot of ducks to get in a row, the 1st being earning support from the school, at least moral support. Having the team and administration being at odds is not a position of 1st resort.

Reading their fact sheet they proudly talk about their alumni going to schools like MIT and current students discussing thermodynamics in class. If there are going to support roller derby, robotics should be a cakewalk.