[artdutra04]

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, we are prohibited from charging dues or annual fees to be a team member, even though we never did charge dues in the ten years prior to incorporating as a non-profit. In our school district, 85% of the students are on free or reduced price lunch. As such, as try to keep student expenses as low as possible, as a large portion of our team is compromised of the typically underrepresented groups in engineering.

Since the loss of a major sponsor about six years ago, we've had all students and mentors pay all travel costs personally, minus a "travel stipend" that is allocated based upon how well fundraising went that year. (In our first few years, our team paid all travel costs, including week long Park Hopper passes when Nationals was at Epcot). One of the reasons we compete at up to a half dozen post-season events is that with the exception of the hotel for Battlecry@WPI, these events have no cost on our students, as we almost always use "provide your own transportation" philosophy. (Most students will carpool with each other to events).

Due to the financial situation of many of the students on our team, traditional fundraising options - selling stuff - have never panned out for us. Instead, we've had tremendous success with can and bottle drives, car washes, pasta dinners, and especially our pulled pork barbeque events. Through these fundraising efforts, we fundraise well into the five-figure amount every year, with nearly all coming from the latter.