[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by nlknauss

It takes a few years for a team to form reliable, on-going partnerships with corporate sponsors. It also takes about the same amount of time for teams to create their own structure for spending through the course of a competition year. Having a regional structure in place to work with teams as they develop their programs can be helpful with this whether it is a regional director, FIRST senior mentor, or team of volunteers.

The other side of this is team management and support. There are many ways to do this, but many teams do spend a lot of time in their second and third years thinking about how this should look. A similar support group can be a great deal of help for mentors, teachers, and students on young teams.

Basically, the rookie year isn't the only year a team needs assistance with its formation.

Actually, there is an organization to help with team management and support: FIRST NEMO, the Non-Engineering Mentor Organization for FIRST teams.

FRC teams certainly have business-like components: staffing (students and mentors), finance (fundraising and expenses), facilities (build site, tools, IT, etc.), marketing (PR), and other logistics (transportation, communications, etc.). NEMO's purpose is to provide team with resources to do these things without having to re-invent the wheel.

I strongly recommend teams intending to sustain (or grow) their operations check out NEMO!