Corporate Sponsorship?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Robo_Coyote

My team, Madtown Robotics team 1323 is currently trying to get a corporate sponsor. Our past sponsors have all been local. I would just like to know from other teams if this type of sponsorship has worked for you and how you went about getting it. I would also liked to know how evolved they got with your team and how much you got them to help you. Did they give you funds? Or engineering help or workshops for to help your team develop?

Thanks very much

Hi and welcome!
I would also like to add that working with any sponsor, including corporate sponsors, is an opportunity to give back. It is a two way street. Our corporate sponsor is National Instruments. NI is very generous in helping our team with financial support as well as mentoring. As a way of giving back, 418 participates in many of NI's programs. One example is the Lego Mindstorms event.
http://www.legomindstormsmania.com
Working with a corporate sponsor can provide a lot of wonderful opportunities for the teams to share and help develop terrific programs.

[sheltie234]

Cyber Blue 234 is sponsored by several coporate sponsors. Our main sponsors are from Allison Transmissions (GM) and Rolls-Royce, but they give more than just financial help. They provide several engineers and facilities for our CDRs (infront of a panel of non-team Rolls-Royce engineers) and demos. Our sponsor from Allison was by applying to General Motors, and they then said we were sponsored by the nearest GM facility, aka Allison Transmission. With Rolls-Royce, our team mentor went to one of Rolls' plants and asked if they wanted to be a part of this wonderful and extremely rewarding organization (of course they said yes).

If you need any more help, please don't hesitate to ask!

[Chris Fultz]

Check out two white papers that might help youdevelop your approach -


FIRST Sponsorship = Excellent Corporate Strategy

and

Sponsor Care

[RoboMadi]

In order to get a corporate sponsorship, one need to have a connection within a company. I'm not sure about others, but mainly for our team Parents and Mentors have helped a lot in bringing in the corporate sponsors. Most of them work for some really prestigious companies, and have links/connections within to spread the word. The main idea is to get the parents involved as much as you can, because most of them work in a company (small or big).
As 612 is located in the Technology Hub of USA, our mentors, teachers, and parents have connections within the companies or most of them work for one.
Not only that, over the years we've been able to get help/mentors from sponsors too. Some of them are Northrup Grumman, SAIC, Raytheon, Mitretek Systems, IEEE, Lockheed Martin, OEC, Fiserv, etc. (I know its shocking that all the rival defence companies are sponsoring a team jointly )

[Robo_Coyote]

another question... how much of your teams budget is provided by your corporate sponsors???

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Robo_Coyote

another question... how much of your teams budget is provided by your corporate sponsors???

I don't know if I'm allowed to give numbers... but... if It weren't for Northrop Grumman, we probably wouldn't have a team.

[Robo_Coyote]

well what about a percentage?

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Robo_Coyote

well what about a percentage?

Percentages might be hard to nail down. Just in this thread we've seen teams who have several sponsors, teams who have one sponsor, teams who are working with grants, teams who have been working successfully and hard for over 10 years, and are just now reaping the benefits of working with a corporate sponsor. The percentage of the pie would be based on a lot factors. I can guess that the percentage could be significant but many teams still have to fundraise and find other sources of income and material donations. Also some sponsors provide the locale for build.

In 418's case, we have the generosity of our sponsor, as I mentioned, and we also work locally in our community all year. This weekend we are participating in the stadium clean-up at UT. It's another one of those give back opportunities: we work and make some money and the university here in our city benefits from working with many school teams and groups.

[RoboMadi]

Originally Posted by Robo_Coyote

another question... how much of your teams budget is provided by your corporate sponsors???

You want to talk figures.........so lets talk figures...

It varies from year to year. Amount provided by corporate sponsors is directly proportional to how much you can impress them. For our team it was 40K last year. (We have saved from last year, and will be using it this year)

While on the other hand, Individual Cost of every regional/national is directly proportional to how much effort one put in to raise money. There is a specific fee everyone has to pay to attend competitions, but if you work hard on the alternatives (sell coupons help at Fair), that amount can be minimized too (in some cases to 0). Regional : $100 ; National : $150

[Robo_Coyote]

Can anyone give me another figure of some sort to contrast the one i just got about the 40K cause my team is trying to put together a proposal for our hopefully corporate sponsor?? Your team number will not be disclosed i just want the number please

[Madison]

If it's helpful, I can say that 488 spent a bit more than $30,000 last year. That paid for the entry to the Pacific Northwest Regional and Championship Event, travel for the team to each event, dinner for about twenty people three times a week, and materials for our robot and ancillary activities.

We spend a lot of money per student because many wouldn't otherwise be able to afford even the modest expense of a trip to Portland. Teams from more economically affluent communities can probably rely more on their students to chip in and pay the cost of their travel.

In 2005 and 2006, we did not have a 'corporate sponsor' in the traditional sense, but relied almost entirely on donations to the team from employees at Microsoft and Boeing as well as grants. Both Microsoft and Boeing match employee donations to non-profit organizations, but it took awhile for us to amass the money needed to pay back the mentors we borrowed from as the season went along. I would not expect all mentors to be so generous with their bank accounts -- we're just a little crazy.

This season, because of the word spread along by those who've donated to us in the past, at least some folks higher up the food chain at area companies have begun to notice our program and how quickly it's grown. Additionally, we've brought DeVry University on board thanks to how closely we worked with them during the season by asking them to send representatives to our team meetings and to Portland so as to engage our students in planning for their college educations.

Sometimes you'll be fortunate and you can make a cold pitch to someone and get some funding from them, but more often than not, you'll need to do some legwork for a while to build a relationship with people who can help you to get what you need.