"These Hard Times"?

[Akash Rastogi]

Neal,

an important piece of information here is the company that the inquiry was made to and who you actually spoke to. I personally know who both were but shed some light on who you spoke with and the relationship of said company to your team's location.

Those factors were the most important reasons why I recommended that you speak to those specific people and also why I was insanely surprised by this person's response to 2554. It was upsetting for me to hear

-Akash

P.S.- The company in question is a market giant...this was why I was surprised by the response.

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by neoshaakti

Today members on my team and I called a lot of local companies and corps. asking to talk to their community relations manager or department; however, we were met by an overwhelming "not interested" or "business has been terrible, we can't donate money at this time". Are other teams running into similar problems?

Is my approach wrong?

I'm not here to gripe about how expensive FIRST is or anything
I'm just here because Im curious if other teams are experiencing similar roadblocks, and whether they've figured out a more effective method to approaching corporations.

You're feedback and thoughts on this are appreciated.

Our team has a few months to raise 6k because in order to apply for the 2nd year grant from NASA, they need to see you've raised 6k from corporate or community grants.( If I am not mistaken...)

Im located in Central NJ, by the way

Thanks

My team gets people like this all the time. We have found that sending people hand written letters is the best way to get someone to respond. Another thing that works welll is to learn about the companies, maybe ask them to show you what they do as a company. Once you gain some sort of relationship or familiarity with the people at the company it is easier to get them to give.

[ttldomination]

I'll be honest, this has happened to me. We tried to get Delta Airlines interested but everyone knows the Airline industry is in a decline, so that didn't go to well.

But, try to target mid sized companies or smaller companies. These are the companies that are smaller and are more willing to look into advertisement and community involvement. The larger companies are used to sponsorship hassles and stuff. But the smaller companies haven't experienced that yet.

As for phone calls, it's OK, but not good, I would prefer a personalized letter. Face to face can get a little hectic, like, all the traveling, and at times, maybe a little bit awkward.

So.... Where are you guys located?

[neoshaakti]

Originally Posted by lilstogi11

Neal,

an important piece of information here is the company that the inquiry was made to and who you actually spoke to. I personally know who both were but shed some light on who you spoke with and the relationship of said company to your team's location.

Those factors were the most important reasons why I recommended that you speak to those specific people and also why I was insanely surprised by this person's response to 2554. It was upsetting for me to hear

-Akash

P.S.- The company in question is a market giant...this was why I was surprised by the response.

Originally Posted by ttldomination

So.... Where are you guys located?

We're located in Edison, NJ home of the wizard of menlo park...lol
We approached Siemens, whose Foundation is literally 5-10 minutes away from our school (though they are in a neighboring town called Iselin, NJ, the home of Little India)
We also approached BASF Catalyst which has their HQ near the Siemens Foundation HQ, but they said we weren't "in their community"
so yeah, we're going to try Goldman Sachs since one of our mentors on the team is an employee there...though I fear the same "not in our community" answer..hmm
we do have a Loreal Branch near us who we intend on approaching
we also have a Thales branch near us


thanks for all the feedback!

-Neel

[d25inferno]

Hey guys today team 2554 did baggging at a local grocery store to get some money. In total we got about $426 from customers. I just wanted to know how much you guys rely on volunatary activities and how much you rely on sponsors. Also is this amount of profit the norm for such events or were we just lucky? Oh and we also found a potential mentor or two

-Dev

[Dowjonesbotics]

Im really surprised Siemens would say no to you guys. That's a little ridiculous.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Dowjonesbotics

Im really surprised Siemens would say no to you guys. That's a little ridiculous.

That was my exact reaction dude. But I guess its all economics....But still, it sucks to hear a rejection from a sponsor. =/

[Dowjonesbotics]

Who was the person you talked to? I really would like to be sponsored by Siemens. Maybe they could give us like 100,000 dollars for the next season. Then we'd be as good as 1114

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Dowjonesbotics

Who was the person you talked to? I really would like to be sponsored by Siemens. Maybe they could give us like 100,000 dollars for the next season. Then we'd be as good as 1114

Money does not make the team (eventhough you may be kidding)


If you want to actually speak with any company, find out if anyone you know works there or knows someone who does. It is best to have direct contact with someone who can help rather than going on the website and going to "contact us"

[neoshaakti]

Originally Posted by Dowjonesbotics

Who was the person you talked to? I really would like to be sponsored by Siemens. Maybe they could give us like 100,000 dollars for the next season. Then we'd be as good as 1114

hahaha yeah who wouldn't want 100,000 dollars...

lol are you being serious? I can PM you the person I contacted if u want..?

[xitaqua]

Hello All,

I hope this can help :

It is not about the money, it is about the mentor.

Most mentors work at companies, if a company is willing to give some money to the team it will be more likely to do so because one of it's employees is involved with FIRST.

Let the mentor take the initiative in talking to the company about funding, this is specially true to big corporation, just because a company has a "community relations" person does not mean that it will be easy to get funded, it needs to be part of the company corporate strategy. If a company has 10 sites, and one site a team got money, the other site will probably want to be able to give money. So that means the enterprise itself needs to budget that money, and it will not be "small change", it make take a while, but if nothing else you have a mentor that is involved with the team.

Develop a strategy to attract and keep mentors, look at parents, neighboors, engineers that goes to your place of worship and etc...etc.....

Also keep your "sponsors" diverse, it is much better to get a bunch of small donations than a big one. I seem so many teams folding because of this single issue. The keyword : Involvement - Participation.

Have an open house and invite the folks in the community to tour your facilities, send invitation to Chamber of Commerce members..etc...etc...


Cheers,
Marcos.

[Dowjonesbotics]

yeah i know lilstogi but 1114 does have a good sponsor and a lot of money so they can make a good robot but i see what you are saying

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by Dowjonesbotics

yeah i know lilstogi but 1114 does have a good sponsor and a lot of money so they can make a good robot but i see what you are saying

I don't know, but I imagine there are a lot of teams with just as much money that aren't as accomplished, on the flip side there are teams that are just as accomplished and don't have as many resources (maybe not as accomplished as 1114, but I think you can see what I am trying to say).