Should Sponsors ask to be recognized?

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Collmandoman

I think as professionals ,sponsors should not ask to be recognized, and as we are professionals we will recognize them because we feel it's right, having never been asked to. I think that's the best way for it to happen.
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Do you want a sponsor that cares about the team.. or themselves? Should sponsors only get involved if they undersrand what FIRST is about?

And I would have to respond that, as the largest sponsor of FIRST teams in the entire program, NASA massively disagrees with you. I reject the notion that asking for a team to acknowledge the sponsorship of an organization is equivalent to not understanding what FIRST is all about. When NASA sponsors a team, part of the deal is that NASA is recognized by the team as a sponsor, "NASA" is included somewhere in the team name, and the NASA logo appears somewhere on the robot. This is done for a number of reasons, including:

- it is appropriate and professional to recognize the contributions of all members of the team; when an organization sponsors the team, they tacitly become part of the team, they and the team are then associated with each other, and they should be recognized as such

- recognition of NASA sponsorship of the team acknowledges that NASA has used their resources to "support the cause" and further both the goals of FIRST and the agency. They can then show their sponsors (the U.S. Congress and the public) that they are properly utilizing the resources that they have been given. When they do so, then they are given additional resources in future years to continue the effort. If they don't, then about 200 teams will be without sponsorship next year.

- Oh yeah, and FIRST requires it.

So the bottom line is that NASA does, and will continue to, ask to be recognized as a sponsor when the agency supports a team. Because NASA is smart enough to understand that without the recognition of the sponsorship, the ability of the agency to continue to support the program will be questionable and the long term effects are much, much worse than any minor discomfort someone might feel about asking for a logo to be placed on a robot.

Does this mean that NASA is a bad sponsor, or the agency is involved for all the wrong reasons, or the agency doesn't understand what FIRST is all about. Well, NASA has been involved with FIRST for the past ten years. You have all had ample opportunity to observe the actions and behaviors of the agency and it's engineers, and judge if NASA is an appropriate sponsor or not. What do you think?

-dave