College-Sponsored Teams: I need some help!

[Jizvonius]

I am a 3rd year ME at Georgia Tech. Our FIRST team is organized under the RoboJackets, a student organization in the ME department. We raise money within the school through the ME department, our student government association, and college affiliated organizations. If you guys are organized and established there, then you could try to do the same thing. However, in your proposals and such to the college departments and student government you usually have to show how the program benefits the college students. Other money usually exists for mentorship in other college affiliated orgnizations.

Our team received funds both ways. Our ME department is pretty helpful in notifying us about grants and getting us in as a part of larger proposals to companies (so we get bits of money from companies that fund the ME dept). Also as we ran Technology Enrichment Sessions for area teams, we recieved funding for that through Women in Engineering's outreach program. The amount is never really concrete. It depends on how much you ask for in your proposal and how you show that it will be used. Depending on who you're asking, the funds they have are usually for a specific purpose that you should address in your proposal. You just have to find out what it is.

Most of this stuff has to be set up in advance though. For money in the near future for championship registration etc., Your best bet may be through professor and department personal contacts. (ex. A professor and/or dept. head runs a company that sponsors you directly)

Hope some of that helped/made sense.