[Kristina]

Great topic! I was actually gonna start the same exact thread since I'm helping write a mini manual for next year's class...tips on management/organization/fundraising etc.

Although we were blessed with sponsorship from a few great companies, traveling, entry fees, and parts sure do add up so we have to do more than write letters to corporations.

Well for those who need quick cash (lets say you need an expensive part soon) there's always the bakesales (we made a nice $100 in one day), See's Candy Sales, selling rootbeer floats, and carwashes. The only problem is that every other club at the school does this.

For more money, it takes a little more preparation. Our big student fundraising event is putting together a dinner, ours is actually next week. All the parents make pasta and one of my teammate's dad is a chef so he makes the sauces. Another dad is big on garlic bread so he just prepares bread like there's no tomorrow. Put some tablecloths on tables in the school's cafeteria, display your robot and show it off by running it around, and put together video clips of your robot...and voila, you got yourself a good fundraiser. We charge $8 a person (team members get in free of course because they're all gonna be working). We give two tickets to the presidents of companies who sponsor us to show our appreciation and they can purchase more tickets if they want their kids or friends to come or something. The kids that our team mentored for lego league are also really eager to come...and so are their parents...and so are our parents...and so are the administration. Tons of people bought tickets just to support us even though they could not attend that day. You get the picture, lots of people = lots of money. Each person has to sell at least 3 tickets. So if I do my math right and everyone sells the bare minimum, our class is making around $1000. Thats about how much money we raised last year and our team was half as small and just a loosly structured club.

Not only is this as great way of making money, its also fun because its like an end of the year wrap up for the team. We get to show off our accomplishments (especially to our sponsors, who are more inclined to donate again once they see their money being put to good use). We also do a little thank you ceremony at the end, to our teacher, mentor, sponsors, and our team captain's parents, whose house we lived in for 6 weeks.

I'm sure I have more suggestions but I gotta get to school soon.