I’m proud to introduce our new FRC team, the Misfits, with a mission to expand opportunities to all students passionate about robotics. We’re launching a GoFundMe to help us get started and compete in the 2026 FRC season.
It would be helpful if you said where you were located.
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Always exciting to see new FRC teams getting started. You are ahead of the game in comparison to a lot of the other 2026 rookie teams, most of which likely won’t be getting super active in their fundraising and preparation until Summer/Fall 2025.
In my experience, the “fundraising” method that has the best success is typically going to be applying for grants. There are tons of threads on CD about grants that FIRST teams are eligible for, so I would advise you to look through some of those.
Finding mentors/parents that work at companies that are able to donate is also a great way to raise funds. A program that my company offers is every hour I volunteer with my team, the company donates $20, up to $1,000 per year. They also will match any financial contributions I make to the team, up to $10,000 per year. So make sure that you are looking for those kinds of opportunities as well.
GoFundMe is a great tool (there are other similar tools that take a smaller percentage of donations though), but typically these types of fundraising initiatives are more successful when you have a specific item/event you are raising funds for such as: a trip to champs. So I would (and currently do) prioritize other means of raising funds over a gofundme (or similar) campaign.
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This first, money later… You need these before you are even looking at registration or needing the money to pay for it.
Is there already an established group of students who make up this team or you’re trying to fund it first, then recruit? Lots of questions to be asked, we just need more info
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Fortunately you may be able to get a few people to event(s) this year, which is a great way to sell the program to a sponsor, school board, students, mentors, parents…
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Potential sponsors
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Can I suggest you be a little more realistic in your budget.
You seem to be applying at 13.5% overhead on everything. That might be reasonable for physical purchases, but there is no tax on FIRST registration.
You have listed both “Registration” and “District Registration”. I am guessing that “District Registration” is really for District Champs, but honestly, that is optional. If you do qualify as rookies, absolutely great, but you could then do a quick fundraising campaign.
You have listed 2 3D printers and a CNC, which adds to a lot, but you have not listed any hand tools or standard shop tools. The team is going to need drills and bits, a band saw, taps, screwdrivers, etc. If you have access to a space which has that, you might want to say that.
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We are based out of Manassas.
We have a sizeable group of interested students, though we have no outlined mentors or coaches.
I did not realize that FIRST Registration was not taxed. 7% of it is going to be our fiscal sponsorship fee.
I have mixed feelings on this. On my previous VEX team, we thought this and set that out on our budget from the get-go. We qualified at states and, when it came time, we couldn’t make it to nationals as money never came up.
Just to be clear, Manassas, Virginia?
Are you all planning to be based out of a school or will this be a community team?
@prensing My area of knowledge generally consists of programming, CAD, and 3D printing. (In fact, I only got the cost of the CNC from a another post.) If you could inform me on what specific equipment is needed and how much I can expect each to cost, that would be greatly appreciated.
Spectrum put together a great list of stuff you should buy with your first 10,000
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I think this is going to depend a bit on where you are building (*). I don’t have a specific list, but I know there are a few threads on CD which give “how to spend your first X dollars”, being mostly tools. I would suspect that you need a few thousand dollars on just basic tools.
- do you have a build space? If not, that should be high on your list to work out, and it might cost money.
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Start here as they will have an input on budget, what items are critical for your first season, vs nice to haves, vs not at the level you are at currently. You can run a team on a shoestring budget from a mentors garage, but you need that mentor first. They will also be able to guide you and add more fundraising ideas. It also helps add credibility to the team the more adults that are officially part of the process.
I want new teams, I want students who want to do robotics to do it, but I don’t want you to burn yourself out or take too big of a swing and get shut down before you even get off the ground. Start small and get your team together with mentors and then decide on the operating budget
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Just to be clear, this depends on your team’s location, and in some cases which events you attend: Sales Tax Information | FIRST
If you are VA-based and only attending CHS events, I don’t think any of this currently applies to you, but I don’t know how this could change by 2026.
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I have now “rebased” the budget to use that list.
I am also located in VA (the other end of it) and would be interested in helping…
The description of the fundraising campaign is a bit negative… it leaves me with a feeling that the author is carrying some grievances that might threaten their ability to deliver a positive, impactful program in a responsible way.
If given the choice between (a) donating to force-multiply an existing effort that’s already delivering positive outcomes, and (b) donating to cancel out some negative outcomes, I think potential donors (people who almost by definition believe in network effects and community-building) would prefer (a).
So with that in mind, let me offer this suggestion for rephrasing the first bullet.
The proposed new FRC team will enrich the existing ecosystem of competitive youth STEM programs by filling service gaps and meeting unmet needs in our community.
Through your donation and the contributions of other local donors and sponsors, we seek to minimize the share of costs that are shouldered by participating families, while maintaining an overall funding level necessary to deliver an impactful STEM learning experience.
Our team will join a rich network of existing programs that each strike a different balance between participant-raised and community-raised funding. This diversity of funding models will enable access to STEM for more of our community’s students.
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Thank you so much for this feedback! I really appreciate the suggestions on what better to say.
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I think you need to provide a lot more info in your pitch. Are you affiliated with a school? Which one? If not, what community are you in? What adults are affiliated with your team? Do you even have adults yet? Describe what FIRST is. Are you looking for donors or sponsors? What are people getting for their money? Acknowledgement on your website? Photo of team? What is your goal for corporate sponsorships? How else are you fundraising?
Look more closely at your budget. I think you need more than one pair of safety glasses, for example. Also, have someone proofread anything you post. Misspellings and poor grammar don’t instill confidence in people. You’re asking people to give you $20,000. You need to tell them more.
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We are based out of Manassas, Virginia and are not affiliated with any school.
We are currently looking for Mentors. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Yes. We are holding off on sending any emails until we get our domain, which should be sometime within the next week.
I am willing to do acknowledgement on the website. Do you believe that to be a good idea?
We would prefer to source the majority of our funding from sponsorships and grants, with GoFundMe being an auxiliary measure. We have tried doing commission fundraising periods at multiple restaurants such as Texas Roadhouse, Chipotle, Raising Cane’s, and Sweetfrog. We have also tried reaching out to local STEM-based and education-based companies.
I apologize, the majority of the original hardware list was scrapped and directly replaced from the spreadsheet that @nhos linked.
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@betty Thank you so much for your feedback, it really helps. I have updated the description to fix all of your concerns. If you see any more issues or concerns, please feel free to point it out.