What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[maxnz]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

This response is so late that I feel bad but roughly speaking yeah a teams resources should be going to growing themselves instead of advertising the benefits of FRC.
FRC has the ability to represent itself better then any group of students (come at me people who disagree) because the people in FRC have better points of contact in industries where if we got more support we would be better off. If we grow the relations between the real world and FRC then a team has a better platform and more support to stand on. If companies more actively came out and sponsored teams as opposed to teams going to companies that sends a pretty strong message. That says this company supports what we are doing, a business is investing actual time or money into these students (or both). That is some great evidence for a school board or a parent who goes "what have you been doing after school?". That would mean that the small team of 5 students and some crazy mentor have some real solid proponents and advocates that help when dealing with naysayers.

IMO...

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I understand your general rhetoric, but I'm still having trouble seeing how anything changes in reality. Are you saying you think FIRST HQ needs to attempt to recruit sponsors to help various individual teams?

What I interpret it as saying is: FIRST should have companies that would be willing to consider sponsoring FRC team(s) make it more obvious that they will consider it. When you are seeking out sponsors, it is usually easier to get a sponsorship from a place that you have a 'way in', or direct connection to (i.e. parent or mentor works there, etc.). But if the company is willing to consider sponsoring FRC team(s), then FIRST could help make it so that saying "I'm from FRC team ####" can be your 'way in'. Not sure if that makes sense, but that's my interpretation.