[Jessica Boucher]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

If FIRST is failing to acknowledge that business is a STEM field, then they are missing the boat.

Aaaand here's where I disagree. It CAN be a STEM field, but it is not always. Know why Babson sticks out in this list of salaries full of ivies and tech schools? Because they're all going into finance/accounting. And I can tell you all of my friends who were super-finance-focused didn't give a care about my robot business.

FIRST has a lot of competition for non-profit dollars. Not just with the usual suspects (Vex, BBIQ, etc), but with other NPOs. I've written about this before, but there's more "seemingly needier" organizations out there. FIRST falls within the education/job growth category of NPO, and usually "job growth" is not as pressing as the "feeding and housing and eradicating disease" orgs. As FIRST grows to non-tech companies to Make it Loud, this will become more and more prevalent.

They need to be laser-focused when going for grants and large donations, or else they won't get them. This is why I'm very happy for the quiet revolution: scholarships are available, the Entrepreneurship Award, etc. I also believe in the butterfly effect: their experience may inspire a new engineer who didn't think they could go into a STEM career. That also makes my day.