I’m not sure how posting works on here. Our team just ran into a major issue. We are a rookie team and applied for many grants. We were told we could, just to let them know. But our school is now very mad at us, and it could result in the club shutting down. We haven’t applied to PTC or Gene Haas yet, which would have been major sources of income until we figured out consistent fundraisers.
Have other teams encountered this? Our school gives us no financial or in-kind support other than the build space. Not even transportation. They approved of one grant for our registration and that’s it. We are reaching out to our regional office to talk over alternatives. We have considered having only direct checks into our portal then regranting it but that takes too long. We also looked into HackBank but they take 7% of income. We aren’t in a position to be picky though.
Is there a way we can follow rules and still apply to grants? Thank you.
What are their “rules”? What are they concerned about? What is the difference from their perspective between grants, sponsorships, donations, and fundraisers?
Their “rules” are “we don’t find out until we ask and when we do ask they don’t usually give us good reasons." We’ve tried opening up lines of communication to discuss the issue directly, however they resist and aren’t giving us a good answer. We are trying to find out their exact wording so we can follow it. But they won’t work with us.
We are trying to figure out why Grant #1 was okay that they approved, but grants #2+ aren’t. There aren’t common factors about any of them. We informed them about each one, they’re all being awarded the same way.
Also the approval process for grants is randomized. They won’t tell us what they are okay or aren’t okay with in a consistent time frame and they won’t prioritize us, even if the grant window is short. I’m not sure how to edit messages, sorry.
Adding on to what @paulonis asked about, what grants did you apply for specifically that they were upset with? Is it some of the information being provided or the grants require “legwork” by the school district that they feel is too much for them to handle in a short time? We are missing a lot of the story here to be able to provide good advice
Why do “they” have to approve grant applications? Do they think some sources of money are “bad”? It would be understandable if the school or district wanted to approve fundraisers that involved student labor and made specific requests of students, but that’s not needed for grants.
In order for you to solve your own problem, and certainly for anyone else to help you solve your problem, you are going to have to understand the problem in much more detail.
Some schools (and some administrators) do not understand what FRC really is, how it works, and especially how much funding it requires simply to field a robot, much less deal with all the other expenses of running an FRC team. So my first suggestion is to have your mentor(s) who work for the school (I’m assuming that at least one does) talk to the administration about the logistics and costs of a team and why fundraising and grant writing are very much a part of the overall experience. That alone might solve the problem, since they may simply not understand why you need to raise all that money or what it’s being used for. Many competitive clubs don’t have these kind of expenses and they may be operating on incorrect assumptions about what you need and why.
That said, they may still not agree or they have some other objection (though what that might be I can’t imagine.) If that’s so, you might want to look at something that many FRC teams and a lot of high school sports team (and bands) use to help fund their activities without running afoul of school or district restrictions or reluctance to fund them: a non-profit booster club formed by team parents and other adults that don’t work for the school or district. They can raise grant money, even if the team members are the ones actually writing the grant applications, and then use it to purchase what the team needs and donate it to the team. Rare is the school that’s going to tell a bunch of their own parents that they can’t donate what they want to a school team or club (as long as it isn’t inappropriate for high school students, anyway.) Chief Delphi has a couple of long discussions (here and here) of this problem and how many teams have set up 501(c)3 booster organizations connected to their team but separate from their district. The grantors are actually sending the grant money to the 501(c)3 booster club, which some of them prefer since they’d rather deal with a 501(c)3 than an entity like a school district, and that keeps the school from interfering in the grant process and the necessary fundraising, since they have no control over the booster club and, as long as they are at least technically donating materials and paying registrations and fees to other entities (like FIRST) instead of sending money directly to the team, you should be in the clear.
Beyond these two ideas, things get a lot more difficult. I’d suggest that you explore these first and then look for other answers only if you have to.
I don’t want to talk too in-depth about the grants we applied to, because I want to keep my anonymousness. However we applied to two grants that are applied directly into our FIRST portal. Both asked similar questions about our statistics, both have the same lead times, and both pay over $3k (similar numbers from both). We found little difference in-between them, just that one grant took place Spring-Summer and the other was Summer-Fall. We went through the same process for both grants: formally let a staff member know, and communicate our application status. No part of this process required any involvement from our schoolboard, besides them knowing. No school member required filling out any part of the application, we have access to all relevant information, and we write all the grants ourselves.
Grant #1 ran into little issue. Grant #2 caused many issues.
We’re not sure why they have to approve of them. I’m aware that they want to know when their EIN is being used, but never followed up with a specific reason. We have inquired asking about what part of these processes makes them uncomfortable to ensure we don’t apply to somewhere “bad”.
Some stuff we asked included if we maybe we only apply to FIRST-specific grants; or education-only grants. They just don’t like us applying for grants. They won’t give us a reason. We’ve asked several times and have not received a clear answer. If asked for a list of “red tape”, it will not be provided. It instead is “apply and find out”.
What confuses us the most is that they’re okay with sponsorships. For example, if NASA came to our doorstep tomorrow with a check for $6k, they’d be okay with it. But if we apply through the portal, we have to go through a long process to get consent to do so. We’ve asked them about this and the difference between the two, and got little-to-no answers.
Can you set an activity account with the school? Most sports have an activity account that funds are tracked just for the activity. We work with our site secretary and track most of the things. Some larger grants need reporting and that get elevated to district finance people. There is usually a seperate bank account tied to the school for activities.
We’ve talked to the schoolboard several times about the costs running a FRC-club. We’ve gone over the average costs, how it’s more than just registration, and the potential advancement opportunities we can qualify for. The schoolboard is well aware of why, but we’re just as confused why they won’t let us apply for grants.
We are looking into a nonprofit booster club right now. We’re currently trying to find bylaws from our school to ensure we do this correctly. Our eventual goal is to set up out own 501c3, but we are seeing other options like HackClubBank. Thank you for recommending those threads, we have some good reading to do tonight.
We have set an activity account with the school and that’s where our primary finances are located.
The issue is that the grant size doesn’t seem to matter. We applied for one grant that’s over 3k+, and they had little issue. But we applied to another that’s 1k, and they got upset. And a different grant that was the same range as the first also caused issues.
For those thinking we are giving inconsistent for our dilemma, that’s because these are the answers we’ve received. It feels like every time we ask similar questions, we get very different answers. Applying for similar grants from similar organizations solicit different responses and we can’t find the common thread why (for the same amount of money.)
Sorry if this seems frustrating, this is what we’ve been dealing with.
Thank you to those who suggested HackClub Foundation.
No, adults are involved in the process at every step.
Our school has a blanket-policy with grant applying. We’re allowed to apply to these grants, and we submit approval to do so. Some grants we applied to were deemed okay at first, and then they changed their mind. Some response times takes the entire application window. We’ve also applied to these grants in the past prior, and got approved back then, but now being denied now. We also can’t comment on the state of other “clubs” like us (we are not deemed a sports team), however we seem to be the only club receiving this kind of backlash. Every grant that we’ve applied to has followed school rules throughout the process.
Not that this solves your issue, but I strongly suggest referring to your team as a team, not a club. Clubs are cheap to run and meet occasionally. Teams require investment from the members and the school to operate, meet regularly, and are serious endeavors. Clubs typically don’t need grants. Teams often do.
I see that you’re not officially recognized as a sports team - it’s okay to be a different sort of team. To me, the unspoken meaning behind words matter, and even if you don’t explain this distinction, it creates a subconscious understanding to those you’re explaining it to - especially school administrators.
Absolutely Isriah, you’re right on the mark. Ever since I took over as my team’s lead mentor and school faculty member, I’ve made sure that we are referred to that way in all school and district contexts, even though like with ThrowAwayGrantIssue’s team we are technically a club and receive no money from the school or district. But that team designation, unofficial though it is, lets me do a lot of things for the team that would be much more difficult if they didn’t see us that way.
One other quick piece of advice for ThrowAwayGrantIssue: if you’re in a FRC district system, definitely talk to (or have your lead mentor talk to) the FRC district leadership. They are probably going to be helpful at the very least and might be able to advocate for you and help the school board and the school administration understand things better and stop blocking your grants. If you’re not in a FRC district, then it’s a bit harder, but there may be regional FRC organizations that still might be able to help. Sorry I can’t give you more on that, but I’ve always been with a team in a district (FIRST North Carolina.)
It is not uncommon for private schools to have rules against applying for grant since the school doesn’t want competition for the donations they are asking for. That doesn’t seem to be your issue.
FRC consumes a lot of funds compared to other “clubs” I wonder if some one in the school system thinks of it as an equity issue given the size of some of the grants. Maybe it is a petty bureaucrat that wants to control who “sponsors” the school. It sort of sounds like different people are making different decision rather one person being random.
Another possibility is directed grants require a certain amount of overhead on the administration side since they have to be used for the purpose it was grant for and tracked.
You also need to actively market your team to teh school. They need to understand the value you bring. Better rounded students. This is where having outreach pays you back.
How about the other clubs or teams at your school? Could you ask your sports teams if they are facing similar issues?
If you could raise awareness of this issue across multiple teams and clubs at your school, then I believe you have a chance at changing this “rule” or at least defining the “rule”
If you just can’t make it work with your school, converting from a school-based team to a community-based team, may be the last best option. We were a school team for only our first year, since then we have been a 4H-sponsored community-based team (and 4H has been a tremendous partner for us).