Best sponsors

[Alex Dinsmoor]

1.Who do you have sponsor you?

Currently our sponsors are General Motors Research and Development, AVL, and Rochester High School.

2.Where are they located?

GM R&D is located in Warren, MI, AVL in South East Michigan (not sure exactly what city), and Rochester High School in Rochester Hills, MI.

3.What do they do?

GM R&D provides us with a mentor base and financial aid. AVL also helps with this financial aid.

RHS provides us with a meeting facility, an outfitted shop (wood, auto, and CAD), and a teacher sponsor.

We also have many companies that are associated with team mentors who do things such as provide materials and equipment that is not available to the team at the school.

4.Are they reliable?

We hold excellent relationships with our sponsors and have found that they are always there when we need them. Besides that I'm not sure exactly reliable means.

5.Do they give you money, services, free stuff?

See 3.

6.Are they good at the services they do, if any?

GM provides excellent mentors that have helped us over the years to become the team we are today. Without them we would not be the same team.

RHS has an extremely close relationship with the team and acts more like a partner to the team as compared to what other schools may be.

7.Who is your best sponsor?

We love our sponsors all equally!
Though RHS has the most intimate relationship with us (being our school).

8.How do you get people to sponsor you?

I will start out with saying that we are not the best team to get an opinion on this from, as we have had the same sponsor for many years, but I will explain our process.

We start with brainstorming businesses that team members have affiliations with; these could be such affiliations such as a parent who is an employee or a local business who is interested in the program. We then prepare a presentation about our team, detailing every aspect of the team. We want this presentation to be an accurate representation of our team. This presentation is then given at a business of choice (who is contacted pre-meeting to determine if there is any sponsorship interest).
The owner is also invited to a competition (season pending) to get a feel of the FIRST atmosphere.

If all goes well we have another sponsor!