Why do we bother bagging?

[nxtmonkeys]

Just wondering:


What if no one would sponsor a team?

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by nxtmonkeys

Just wondering:


What if no one would sponsor a team?

You wouldn't have a team? Or the team fundraises all of the funds for itself, check out the FIRST Fundraising Toolkit if you are interested in ways to increase funding for your team.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by nxtmonkeys

Just wondering:


What if no one would sponsor a team?

There exists some grants, and some regional FRC directors have access to some cash to give out on a case by case basis, but if your team can't find a sponsor at all? Its probably because you're not doing a very good job of singing the praises of the program.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by nxtmonkeys

That is the best idea that I've heard so far. us rookies have such a disadvantage.

One of my biggest FRC related pet peeves is rookie teams pulling the "woe is us" card.

I can think of plenty of examples, from several recent FRC seasons, of rookies that show up and perform well on AND off the field.

2013: 4814, 4451
2012: 4334
2007: 2056

I really, truly believe that FRC does a pretty good job of being able to transcend socioeconomic status of its participants, and that in 99% of cases, the result a team has is directly proportional to the effort they put in, and has little-to-nothing to do with the socioeconomic status of the teams members OR its geographical area.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The powerhouses aren't great because they have great sponsors. They have great sponsors because they have a great program that the sponsors feel is worthwhile to support.

[Uriah]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The powerhouses aren't great because they have great sponsors. They have great sponsors because they have a great program that the sponsors feel is worthwhile to support.

I agree. After we won Rookie All Star it was a lot easier to get sponser support. With the extra sponsership we started a new team, who also won Rookie All Star. Now mind you, neither #3381 nor #4531 has ever finished in the top 15% of teams.

Even if it is easier, our students still go out every year and give 30+ sponsorship presentations to companies all over our area. A lot of our sponser only give between $500 to $1000, but due to the sheer number of sponsers we have, our program supports 2 FRC teams, 2 FTC, and ~15FLL teams.

The harder the students work, the more funding they can get.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Uriah

I agree. After we won Rookie All Star it was a lot easier to get sponser support. With the extra sponsership we started a new team, who also won Rookie All Star. Now mind you, neither #3381 nor #4531 has ever finished in the top 15% of teams.

I can testify that winning Rookie All-Star is not an instant ticket to money and sponsors; we're still struggling for monetary support at 4464 and it most certainly isn't for lack of effort.

Originally Posted by Racer26

I really, truly believe that FRC does a pretty good job of being able to transcend socioeconomic status of its participants, and that in 99% of cases, the result a team has is directly proportional to the effort they put in, and has little-to-nothing to do with the socioeconomic status of the teams members OR its geographical area.

I think this is really, incredibly naive; I believe this about as much as I believe FIRST cures cancer or rescues cute kittens. Socioeconomic disadvantage is a deep-rooted social problem that no high-school program is going to completely (or even mostly) transcend.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I can testify that winning Rookie All-Star is not an instant ticket to money and sponsors; we're still struggling for monetary support at 4464 and it most certainly isn't for lack of effort.

Perhaps your approach could use work?

Its usually not terribly effective throwing a sponsorship packet onto the desk of some company exec that essentially says "give us money... because.... yeah, we do this robotics thing... and it like... helps kids... somehow."

In my experience, the most effective sponsorship seeking is done by the students, not the mentors. It seems to be most effective if the students can meet with the prospective sponsor, and have a conversation in the student's own words about why the program is important to them, and what they get out of it. It's also important to demonstrate to the sponsor how the program gives back. Maybe your team raises money for cancer research, or builds robots to help enrich the lives of disabled people, or other community support things. When sponsors see a team that is helping their community, and is visible? Its MUCH easier to get sponsorship, because a sponsor can look at the team doing these things and say yes, I want to put my name on that.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Perhaps your approach could use work?

Its usually not terribly effective throwing a sponsorship packet onto the desk of some company exec that essentially says "give us money... because.... yeah, we do this robotics thing... and it like... helps kids... somehow."

I find your assumptions about and caricature of our fundraising efforts (which you really don't know anything about) rather insulting. Please, be a bit more respectful.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I find your assumptions about and caricature of our fundraising efforts (which you really don't know anything about) rather insulting. Please, be a bit more respectful.

I did not mean to suggest that necessarily your approach was like that. I have seen some pretty poor approaches to seeking sponsorship over the 12 years I've been a part of FIRST.

I only meant to suggest that if you're having consistent problems being successful when seeking sponsorship, that perhaps its your approach that needs work, rather then simply throwing ones hands up in despair and blaming the socioeconomic status of their region.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Racer26

I only meant to suggest that if you're having consistent problems being successful when seeking sponsorship, that perhaps its your approach that needs work, rather then simply throwing ones hands up in despair and blaming the socioeconomic status of their region.

I'm not blaming the socioeconomic status of my region; there is also a large factor of luck involved. We also are not "throwing our hands up in despair," and are constantly trying to better our fundraising efforts.

I am suggesting that your assumption that somehow FIRST manages to transcend all the pitfalls of our economics and correlate perfectly with effort in "99% of cases" is not particularly likely.

[nxtmonkeys]

We're going to go into some parades (hopefully) and maybe get some sponsors.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Perhaps we should keep this thread focused on the topic at hand. Their are plenty of other threads about fundraising and the fairness of it that has been discussed extensively. As for whether to have a stop build day or not we would love to not have to build a second robot but we do so in order to be as competitive as possible. The money building a second robot is a waste really when we could have spent it towards another competition such as Robosub or maybe even take more students to championships and out of state trips.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I think this is really, incredibly naive; I believe this about as much as I believe FIRST cures cancer or rescues cute kittens. Socioeconomic disadvantage is a deep-rooted social problem that no high-school program is going to completely (or even mostly) transcend.

If you think I'm being naive, can you show some real data that proves that on average teams that hail from regions with higher socioeconomic status do better than teams from poorer areas? I just don't believe the socioeconomic status of the region a team comes from has much to do with their success.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Racer26

If you think I'm being naive, can you show some real data that proves that on average teams that hail from regions with higher socioeconomic status do better than teams from poorer areas? I just don't believe the socioeconomic status of the region a team comes from has much to do with their success.

Can you show me evidence that it doesn't? I think it's pretty clearly a less-burdened hypothesis that, like with essentially every other comparable academic exercise, poorer kids are disadvantaged in FIRST than the contrary. Occam's razor states that we should thus expect it to be more probable than the contrary.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Can you show me evidence that it doesn't? I think it's pretty clearly a less-burdened hypothesis that, like with essentially every other comparable academic exercise, poorer kids are disadvantaged in FIRST than the contrary. Occam's razor states that we should thus expect it to be more probable than the contrary.

Give me a few minutes and I will attempt to compare team zip codes median household income with a metric of team success for a similar timeframe (OPR, using 2008 data?)