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Originally Posted by phrontist
I know a lot of teams strive to be self-sustaining, and as such, somewhat "corporate," and I think this is generally a good idea.
But "Mission Statements" are just a wee-bit corny if you ask me 
I'm sure Dilbert can help teams in their quest!  |
Maybe corny, but if your team hopes to raise any money for sponsorship by writing a grant proposal, you are probably going to need a mission statement. Corporations want to know. It's like coming up with the answers for the Yearbook page on the TIMS, or filling out the Executive Summary for the Chairman's award. The more of these questions you can answer, the easier it will be to figure out what your team is about. Once you have them figured out, you can use them over and over again, for sponsorship, for public relations. For most teams, this is the really UNFUN part of FIRST, and if you've got mentors or students working on this, you owe them a big thanks.
It took our team many meetings during the summer to come up with a mission statement (and we've got a really simple one), a contract, a business plan. Unless you've got a HUGE sponsor, this is all part of what FIRST is about.