Laying a Foundation

[lingomaniac88]

Team 1554 is looking for ways to raise money for our team. We tried looking at ideas from this thread, but many of the ideas listed there require either a lot of preparation or a lot of money to invest in them. We don't have much of either. Every year, our high school provides us with the $6,000 registration fee; the rest of the fundraising is up to us. For this season, we only raised about $600, and we only have a few hundred dollars left.

Right now, we are looking for ways to raise large amounts of money, say, between $250 and $1000 (or even more), in relatively easy ways. We are especially looking for methods of fundraising that require little to no investment, since our funds are limited and we cannot afford to take a lot of risks.

One idea that we have is creating and selling T-shirts. The middle school in our school district contains some equipment for making T-shirts, so this would be a good way of making a nice amount of money.

Our ultimate goal is to lay a foundation for next year and for years to come. Does anyone else have any suggestions? What has worked well for other teams?

[Phil Ross]

Our team sells Hexbugs at the begining of each school year. They have been relatively easy to sell and give us a huge profit. We tell each member of our team they need to sell between 5-10 bugs (some do more). Your faculty advisor should also send out a full-staff email with all the information and some really cool pictures. PM me if you have any legistical info on that fundraiser.

[Carol]

This is a one time method, but we signed up with the local mall to get the coins from their fountains. It took over a year before we got notified that we can come pick them up - the time varies as to whenever they decide that they need to empty and clean out the fountain.

We are still cleaning all the coins (they came wet and full of debris and "gunk"), but it looks like we may get $1500 from it. the only effort was to pick up the coins, clean them, and then take them to a coin sorting machine - a free one at TD bank. We call it our Money Laundering project.

We probably won't get a chance to do this again for another couple of years, but it is a nice windfall for us.

P.S. It is interesting seeing all the unusual foreign coins that came with it, like from S. Africa - had to look that one up. And we got a lot of Chuck E. Cheese tokens too!

[EricLeifermann]

We bag groceries at the local Econo Foods. They let us come in on a Saturday and bag groceries for donations from the customers. We make around $300-$500 a time depending on how busy they are during the 6 or so hours we are there.

[Ericgehrken]

It appears that your team has no corporate sponsors. Corporate sponsors are essential to team 195. We have approximately 120 sponsors which give anywhere from $50 to $10,000. If each student and mentor gets a few sponsors then your should be in great shape. If you are interested in a booklet to present to sponsors then please PM me and I will be glad to send you one.

[Jimmy Nichols]

Something that we are doing is selling embroidered Team 1038 Spirit Wear. You can check out the order form here for an idea of we do it, its the link at the bottom of the page.

http://www.eastrobotics.com/Exponent...php?section=26

Basically we provide no money up front. A customers order the items, they pay and we send the order form to the Vendor to be made. Once he makes so many he sends us an invoice. All the money comes in to our account, before any goes out. After the cost of the item, the profit is split 50/50 with the vendor.

We are also planning a garage sale event at our school. Students/parents, mentors, etc. will donate any unwanted items. We tag and sell. Any items left we donate to goodwill or a local churches.

Both require no money up front.

[waialua359]

Do you want to hear the short-term easier, more obvious response or the long-term, much more difficult answer? Every time I tell teams about the latter, it goes in one ear and out the other.
If your at Championships, we'd be more than happy to share our business plan binder and give you or anyone else ideas.
Coming from Hawaii, it is extremely difficult, and it took us years to establish some things. In the end, it has been worth it and I wouldn't do things any other way.
I would always ask the question, "Is the effort sustainable?"
IMO, basic fundraising is NOT.

Our team has been fortunate to raise a lot this year despite the economic crisis by "laying a foundation" as you have stated.

I cannot post our balance sheet for this year due to sensitive info, however, I'd be more than happy to give people a glance if you come to our pits.
This year we raised a record total of 133k and will spend at least half of it this year and already.

At 3 regionals we attended this year, at least 20+ judges heard of our plan and came to the pits to ask us about it. They called it "the book." Even by the time we got to the Hawaii regional (our 3rd), judges knew about it from the head judge advisor. We call it our bible.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Do you want to hear the short-term easier, more obvious response or the long-term, much more difficult answer? Every time I tell teams about the latter, it goes in one ear and out the other.
If your at Championships, we'd be more than happy to share our business plan binder and give you or anyone else ideas.
Coming from Hawaii, it is extremely difficult, and it took us years to establish some things. In the end, it has been worth it and I wouldn't do things any other way.
I would always ask the question, "Is the effort sustainable?"
IMO, basic fundraising is NOT.

Our team has been fortunate to raise a lot this year despite the economic crisis by "laying a foundation" as you have stated.

I cannot post our balance sheet for this year due to sensitive info, however, I'd be more than happy to give people a glance if you come to our pits.
This year we raised a record total of 133k and will spend at least half of it this year and already.

At 3 regionals we attended this year, at least 20+ judges heard of our plan and came to the pits to ask us about it. They called it "the book." Even by the time we got to the Hawaii regional (our 3rd), judges knew about it from the head judge advisor. We call it our bible.

Hi Glenn,
I'm not looking for specific numbers, but are any of your resources/methods/tips/suggestions available online, for those of us not attending the championship? Thanks.

[waialua359]

Dave,
If you check out our website at waialuarobotics.com, it shows a list of our sponsors. However, its only a current list for the 2008-09 school year.
From that point on, you can PM me about any specifics and I will be happy to provide you info. It includes a combination of grants, charitable organizations, both private and public donors, our State government, fundraiser luau, silent auctions, community service fundraisers, and private sponsorship from families/friends/businesses in the community.
We indeed do basic fundraising, however, it is not sustainable and becomes an issue year-year. We do it ONLY to teach our students about how hard it is to raise funds and that by focusing on the other types of sustaining funds, can you achieve a multi-year plan.
As a grant writer, project director for several large funding sources, and the lead person of our robotics team, I spend an enormous amount of time looking for additional revenue sources and I am the most opportunistic person out there selling our team!
In 2004, I even got HP to donate over $200,000 worth of HP tablets, printers, and computer accessories along with professional development for some of our key teachers in robotics. We appeared in their HP philantropy annual report with 2 pictures showing our kids working on robotics.