What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by EricH

If I can summarize the B&T debate succinctly so we can get back to increasing sustainability, and be advised that the numbers are just to identify, and assigned in no particular order:

Tricky thing about sustainability - the two resources are time and money. If all of the members are stressed out and burned out at the end of the season, the team risks folding because low participation time the next year.

--- (my musings on this thread) ---

At this point, I'm of the opinion that most school-based teams would be better served if their finances were a split between a school district and an independent NPO. So many state and local legislatures screw with how extracurriculars are funded/allocated that, IMO, the booster club model is the only real way to sustain a team that doesn't have one large central sponsor. I wonder what FIRST would come up with if they analyzed creating a membership-based financial arm that served as that NPO entity for teams. This would allow GREAT fundraising by a single group of students/adults to really have an impact in later years - something that usually isn't possible in a school budget.

The B&T debate (for me, FWIW) isn't about competitiveness or challenge so much as it is about the stress of a season. As a team who has consistently made it to Worlds we know that our competition season extends the build season by another 8-9 weeks. Even take away all of the CA wins, we would consistently make it to DCMP's now, meaning the season is another 6 weeks after build season.

The 6 week season is a lie for participants who are held accountable for robot performance, and has been for about 8 years. B&T stresses every single one of my build team members - adults and kids - long after 'bag day'.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I wonder what FIRST would come up with if they analyzed creating a membership-based financial arm that served as that NPO entity for teams. This would allow GREAT fundraising by a single group of students/adults to really have an impact in later years - something that usually isn't possible in a school budget.

It should be informative to look back at this year's PNW funding structure and see the influence it might have on team sustainability.