PNW introducing new funding model

[Monochron]

If I'm not mistaken the actual value in this comes from the elimination in competition between PNW and teams (and reduction between teams) for that fundraising money correct? By eliminating that competition (and reducing the competition between teams) PNW hopes to get more total funds from sponsors. So for most teams to see a reduction in cost, PNW is going to have to succeed in pulling in more money from those sponsors?

Reducing the competition will also likely mean that the disparity in amount raised by different teams will likely decrease correct? As sponsor money shifts from teams to PNW (which I'm only assuming will happen) then individual team funding will drop (but this will be okay because event costs will also drop).

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Monochron

I'm not well versed in financial matters so I hope my point is clear. What I'm getting at is that if the total money in / out of the old model is the same as the total money in / out of the new model, then won't there be a net change of 0?

The net change of total expenditure is 0 (except I'm unsure as to what the $256,000 'program fee' to FIRST is), but the cost to teams is (theoretically) less.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

The net change of total expenditure is 0 (except I'm unsure as to what the $256,000 'program fee' to FIRST is), but the cost to teams is (theoretically) less.

As I understand it, the program fee is a payment to FIRST that, effectively, covers losses to FIRST because money from teams is going directly to the district governing body rather than to HQ. It's not unlike a licensing fee.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

The net change of total expenditure is 0 (except I'm unsure as to what the $256,000 'program fee' to FIRST is), but the cost to teams is (theoretically) less.

That's the thing though, if the cost to teams is dropping then the cost to someone else has to increase right?. Who is paying more in this model?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Understand that every team gets the same amount on their bill in terms of the participation fee. The final cost on an individual team basis may end up having different values. For example, we often times get donors who are contributing to their local area schools. It is quite possible for some teams to get more directed funding than others, in which case the final net bill for those teams may differ. This is not unexpected, and is something that has been happening for years. We want to insure that you realize that your final net bill may be different than the team next door.

So, sponsors can still earmark money for specific teams/regions/classifications of teams?

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

The net change of total expenditure is 0 (except I'm unsure as to what the $256,000 'program fee' to FIRST is), but the cost to teams is (theoretically) less.

Originally Posted by Madison

As I understand it, the program fee is a payment to FIRST that, effectively, covers losses to FIRST because money from teams is going directly to the district governing body rather than to HQ. It's not unlike a licensing fee.

It's probably not a coincidence that the $256,000 program fee to FIRST is equal to 64*4000, which is the number of teams that compete at the PNW Championship times the event registration fee.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by Karthik

It's probably not a coincidence that the $256,000 program fee to FIRST is equal to 64*4000, which is the number of teams that compete at the PNW Championship times the event registration fee.

Karthik is correct. This is not a coincidence: "We are have a new $256,000 fee that is due to USFIRST as our program fee. This new program fee is going to replace the registration fees for the PNW District Championship. The good news for all of our teams is that no additional fees are due when you make it to the District championship. That has become an expense item in the WFR budget and is now part of team participation fee. It adds $1,684 for each of our 152 existing teams. If we grow or shrink teams, the $256K is still a fixed expense that we will owe to USFIRST."


It seems that they are banking on the idea that this new system will be easier for the sponsors to understand so they will be more willing to give out more money (opposed to be being confused about the differences between sponsoring USFIRST, WFR, PNW, specific events...).

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

I can see a few different approaches to ensuring fair distribution of the extra plays:

• None, whoever clicks first gets it
• A random lottery for spots
• A lottery based on years since previous third play (similar to CMP waitlist)

Additionally, I would imagine there'd be a gap between third and fourth play registration opening.

I have no inside information on how they plan to do this so your guess is as good as mine, but if I was doing this I might do something akin to the way that the NFL does its waiver wire:

1) Everyone is assigned an initial priority. For argument's sake, let's assume that it's largest team number first.
2) Each team submits an ordered list of which (if any) extra events they would want to go to.
3) Choose the team with the highest priority.
4) See if there are any events with slots left that the team was interested in going to.
5a) If there are then sign them up for the event they wanted the most, then move the team to the back of the priority list. Then go to step 3.
5b) If there were not any events with free slots that the team wanted to go to then choose the next highest priority team and go to step 4. If there is not a next highest priority team then go to step 6.
6) Inform teams of new event signups. Go to step 2 for the next round until it's not possible to sign any more teams up.
7) Save resulting priority list for next year.

A simple lottery would be somewhat problematic: Different slots are worth very different amounts to different teams. It takes longer to get to Spokane (home of the West Valley event) from Seattle than it would take to make a journey visiting every MAR district event! Similarly, telling a team from eastern Washington that they 'won' the option to go to a third event but that it was a slot in Philomath (southernmost and westernmost in the PNW) would probably not make them very happy.

[Ian Curtis]

I think it's a good change. There is a lot of obfuscation in the traditional FIRST funding model, for both the donors and the participants. In my experience most people don't know that a relatively small fraction of their registration fee goes to running the district, and the district doesn't even get a cut of the DCMP fee. This change makes this fact more obvious to a larger group of people.

I still wouldn't mind paying for a third district event. At $1000 a third district is far and away the best value in FIRST.

[PayneTrain]

Seems like the ELI5 version of this is something like this: PNW wants to make the DCMP registration fee not be a sudden burden on financially strapped teams and simplify the registration process for teams, while also giving sponsors an additional concrete cost for them to cover, while also fulfilling the obligation it has to USFIRST.

If I recall correctly, FiM wanted the DCMP to be free back in 08-09 and FIRST wouldn't allow it. Now here we are in 2015 and the PNW decided to find a different way around getting the DCMP money to FIRST. Hopefully it's better for everyone.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by Aren Siekmeier

This leaves the PNW district free to structure the fees as they like; they are choosing to bill teams for the entirety of PNW expenses, dividing their costs evenly among the teams. They estimate each team's fee will be $10,652. This allows them to direct their fundraising toward directly supporting teams in the form of grants to bring down this cost, to their goal of $5000-$6800. Teams' past fundraising efforts would continue to cover this remainder.

What did the registration fee for each team end up as?

[Aren Siekmeier]

I believe the fee after grants (what the team has to come up with on its own) will vary on an individual team basis, depending on what grants a particular team has received. But I think their goal is that no one is left at more than $7000.

Since it's likely not a single number, I doubt it will get published. Maybe some teams can share the situation they're in, though it may be too soon for that.

[Bob Steele]

In order to reduce the amount of money that a given team needs to pay to FIRSTWA they have to apply for a FIRST WA grant. This grant application process just opened a couple of days ago and no one will know what their individual responsibility will be. We were told to have a PO for $10,642 ready to go at a webinar 2 weeks ago. None of us know what we are supposed to pay as of yet.

This is also complicated by another grant from OSPI (Washington Office of the Superintendent of Instruction) which teams have also had to apply for. This is money from the legislature for FIRST programs. Unlike previous years, where this money came to teams directly and could be spent on whatever the team had budgeted in the grant, evidently now this money will affect how much your individual team will be charged for registration. In effect this means that if you got a big OSPI grant, you will be expected to pay more to FIRST WA with the extra amount coming from this grant. OSPI grants for rookie teams are targeted at $12,000 with veteran teams eligible for up to $7000. This initially sounded great until we found out that this increase in grants will just be tacked onto our registration fees.

In the end it is a good plan... it's just difficult to say now exactly what any of us will end up paying.

Everyone needs to remember that what PNW is trying to do is to figure out what it costs to do everything... including the costs of Districts and District championship and divide that cost among teams.

The reasoning is that financial supporters of FIRST would rather give money to teams than to some nebulous "District Cost" or "Championship Cost"

In this way teams all have their share in the costs of the District expenses including the cost to put on events, the cost of paid employees, and the building and storage costs. Businesses that contribute have their money given to teams as "grants" to cover the team's share.

Many teams don't realize that for Regionals, regional committees have to come up with all of the costs of the regional... registration money does not go towards those costs. FIRST does provide some of the amenities,, (field, FTA, etc) but the bulk of the costs have to be raised locally by those regional committees....

FIRSTWA is attempting to give an accounting of costs so teams see what is going on and what is being spent on teams. I think we all have been looking for this kind of transparency. It may take some time for it all to shake out but at least teams have most of the full story.

Of course the rest of the story is where does the "licensing fee" or whatever they call it, that goes to FIRST go? The District can't help with that transparency.

[SoftwareBug2.0]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

FIRSTWA is attempting to give an accounting of costs so teams see what is going on and what is being spent on teams. I think we all have been looking for this kind of transparency. It may take some time for it all to shake out but at least teams have most of the full story.

The major effect of this change is to shift risk from FIRST WA's budget to the teams. I have not made up my mind on whether this is good or bad.

[Navid Shafa]

Discussions on final invoicing has popped up today on the PNW FIRST Robotics Facebook page, for those interested.

Nothing really new, just some clarifications for concerned parties.