Hello everyone, I’m Aires. I have the goal of starting a new team in my area for the 2025 season, but i have found it hard to find resources necessary for it. The main thing we need is money and parts. I was wondering if there would be any teams that could donate items to assist with the team startup.
We’re looking at about 9-12 thousand for our budget this upcoming season, but have found it hard trying to fundraise this goal. Any feedback is most appreciated, as well as any donation offers. I know funding is one of the hardest aspects of running an FRC team, but it’s a huge passion of myself and a few others to try and make this team a reality.
I look forward to hearing back from everyone here, on how to achieve what I’m trying to, Thanks!
To get folks here to provide help in a way that can actually be useful, where in Alabama are you located? Hopefully some local teams can step in to give you advice and tell you about events you can have potential recruits go to and see what FRC is all about.
Is the the school system or another organization willing to sponsor or help with organization/fund raising?
If you have a school system or other appropriate booster organization it can help with writing grant requests and getting possible sponsors to take you seriously.
The real things you need to get together ahead of your rookie season is to get the support organization and volunteer recruitment in place. Trying to fund raise without a support structure won’t necessarily get you what you actually need, because $9-12K for starting up a team with nothing isn’t realistic. If you have access to a shop and a local regional that doesn’t require any travel you would be able to start things, but if you have no resources that’s not a real budget.
Most teams are funded by a combination of their school/host organization, and grants from tech companies and small businesses.
Most teams are school teams, some are run by organizations such as 4H or Girl Scouts, and a smaller number function as independent non-profits. To raise a meaningful amount of money, you need a 501(c)(3) or comparable org to receive the funds for you and assure donors that everything is above board.
Once you have the ability to receive tax-deductible donations, there are lots of grants you can apply for. I was hoping to find more specific info for you, but the firstinalabama website is pretty opaque and the grants page hasn’t been updated since 2020 (although those same grants might still be active). Hopefully there are some Alabama teams on here who might have some more specific advice or be able to put you in touch with a regional director.
You should probably focus your efforts on two things. Writing grants and networking.
There are a few different resources available here on Chief Delphi that assist with identifying potential grants for your team. Check through those and play the numbers game. Once you’ve applied for a few, you can recycle some portions of your applications.
A successful program depends on a deep network of community support. Meet people and build connections. Leverage connections with people in your community who share your goals. Focus on the educational value of the program and get buy in from people who believe in your vision. Then, use those connections to get in touch with people who control the purse strings.
There is money out there, but you have to work hard to get it available for your use. Companies are not monolithic entities, specific decisions are made by individuals within a company. Sometimes getting a no or a non-answer after asking simply means you haven’t reached the correct person with the right info.
You could try using your local chamber of commerce to find leads.
if you are starting a team, NASA always have that rookie grant. and First and/or your regional delivery partner (whoever run your region/district) may also have rookie grants.
IMO, starting a team is the easy part, it is to be able to sustain it that is the hard part. Here’s my order of importance and difficulties for teams (depending on your local community/environment):
Mentor > Money
I dont list students because those come and go from year to year but without dedicated mentors you wont’ be able to have a sustainable team. Those are the absolutely hardest resources to come by.
This is absolutely is my opinion and is entirely based on where we are located.
A lot of teams are funded largely by student payments – $360 x 25 students gets you to $9,000. Fundraise an additional $2000 the normal way (lots of restaurants will do this on on off-night), see if any mentors or parents work for businesses that have programs that will give grants.
But, a team needs more than money and parts. You need Mentors, you need students, you need a place to work.
I’m located in Lee County, near columbus. The closest team to me is Team 7072 OGRE. I was on that team for the 22-23 season, but decided it wasn’t a good fit for me, which led me to want to start my own team.
It really depends on the team. My alumni team charged like $350/student (balanced with financial aid). The team I mentor has $0 out of pocket costs for students and we end up paying $500/head for a season’s worth of competitions. If your community can support it, it’s not out of the question to raise a large portion of your budget that way. Another relatively successful tactic I’ve seen is to impose $X team dues, which can be waived if a student brings in $Y in community funding. $100 dues vs $500 in local funds, for instance.
I looked where you were and I can suggest a place to try and recruit a mentor that will open access to a good rookie grant if you can get a 501(c)(3) set up. The company I work for, Pratt & Whitney, has a large facility right next to Lee County in Columbus Georgia, Columbus Forge / Columbus Engine Center. If you can get one of them to commit as a mentor for your team they can apply for an RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies) grant. I know several of our folks live in that area, but I don’t know that I can provide more info than try to find one to mentor your team.
Other than that look at the info folks above have mentioned. You really need an organization like a school or 4H to be under the umbrella of to get started as it opens a lot of options before you are large enough and sustainable enough to be a separate organization.
As folks said above mentors are what allow a team to have continuity and be sustainable so its important to recruit several of them to prevent burn out and reduce reliance on a single adult holding things together. As someone who has been around the program for 20+ years I have seen several attempts at creating teams fail after the founding mentor steps away because they were the single point of failure for the organization.
A workspace and tools can be figured out until you can get to something permanent.
For context I used to participate in the marching band program at my high school and we had what was referred to as “fair share fees” that basically required anyone who wished to be a part of the program to pay upwards of $200-300 per year just to be a member and that’s before you add travel fees. One of the most competitively successful and largest bands in the state of SC charges $800 per student split across $100 payments for 8 months if you wish.
STEM programs are somewhat fortunate that our mission aligns so well with so many corporate grant/giving programs that tie into the business development budgets of companies. We have a much easier time fundraising for robotics than the band program has in getting funding.
I would be careful about what organization you use as a sponsor. If you become a school-based team or become a team that is “based” out of an organization, you need to make sure that you fully understand the legal process behind a chozen organization. I would mainly place concern around starting as a school-based team, as the bureaucracy and headache is massive there. You are at the mercy of the school and school board, and there is no out except for dissolving your team and forming a new one or moving your team out of the school system. Many, many teams have broken up or dissolved because they were fed up with the school system placing restrictions on them for no justifiable reason. Our team had a big chunk of people separate to form a new community-based team in our area so that they could reach all the people we weren’t allowed to as a school-based team (homeschoolers, people that lived outside of school borders, people that attended disputed border schools, ect.). A school may initially claim that they will not pose any restrictions on your team, but later the school board may change their mind. Of course, school based teams do have their upside. Insurance and other tax-like stuff comes with a school and you do not need to spend as much time setting it up.
I’ll look into that, can you send me some contact information for the facility? If so, that would be great. Thank you for notifying me of the possible mentor/sponsor opportunity.
I only have anecdotal information, but I know that our team does this, and I know of several others. I know that the local high school’s marching band and football programs have a similar thing (IIRC, the football program is something like $700 per kid.)
Even if we were able to get the entire budget covered by sponsorships, I think we’d still charge a small amount, just because people tend to be more committed to things that they’ve paid to do.
(Note: we do have ‘scholarships’ – if a kid really wants to be on the team, but the money is a problem, we will accept less or, sometimes, nothing. We really don’t want a kid not to be able to participate just because they can’t afford it.)
Cool cool… I don’t really like the idea of being a school team, because of the possible restrictions(of which you listed) that would be in place. My main goal is to hope to have a community team, made up of many different schools and students, with mentors from around the cities(Auburn/Opelika) to help run the team as well. Anymore information you can give me about starting a community team?
It varies widely. For example, you can join our team with a 4H membership and for $5 for the t-shirt. But when we travel (and every competition is a travel for us), everyone who goes shares in those costs.
I would contact team 9496 Lynk’s mentors. They just started this year. You will need to get insurance, register as a team, and file for a tax code (usually 501c, but for community teams I think it differs). All of these cost a pretty penny, especially registration.
Another note; Each student paying money is a good way to fund the team. our team does (I think?) 150 per student, but if a student cannot afford it or if money is an object they can contact one of the mentors and we can work with them by either having a sponsor pay their way or otherwise. This almost covers registration or hotels. Hotels and travel can be anywhere from 3-6k, double that if you are going to worlds. Contact hotels and see if they can give you a deal. Hotels are much more likely to work with you if your students are well behaved and professional.
Gotcha! We may end up being a school team tho, since my school has the perfect build space, and a trailer already. But, as mentioned, there are a lot more restrictions in place with a school team. Do you think we’d be able to use that build space or trailer even if we’re a community team(Likely run out of Opelika itself but based in my highschool)? Again, any information you can provide will help me immensely. As well as any infor you can get from the mentors, i would love to hear their tips and suggestions.
@Flightbudz and @shuki are both Lynk mentors, you can contact them for Questions&Info. I’m sure that your school will let you use the space (so long as nobody else is trying to get it). Discuss this with the school first, AND the school board. The more separate of an entity you can act as, oftentimes the better. Tools and such are not cheap, but I can recommend a few. A CNC machine and 3D printer are a must-have. The CR6-SE is a printer we’ve used for years for ALL of our parts, and we have zero complaints. bambu labs has amazing printers, so if you can afford it go for one of those. We have an x-carve CNC machine, but it is expensive and not worth the cost IMO. If you really want to cut metal flawlessly, you can get a WAZER but those are like 10K and you can get a CNC that will cut metal (albeit much slower and worse) for like half or a third that price. I would ask other rookie teams and see what they got for CNC solutions.
As for tools, you’ll need a stock of bolts, screws, nuts, drills, allens, hand tools, ect… These individually aren’t too expensive but they can add up to a lot of money (one or a couple thousand), especially since you probably don’t have a stock of any. Ask around and see if other teams want to donate excess material or tools.
I would recommended starting with school’s admin first, built that support with adults (and students). if you will need funding from the district then you’ll have no choice but to build a trust/relationship with the school board but then that opens up a can of politics.
CR6-SE are great starter 3d printer for sure, we still have 2 of them. If you have anyone who has any experiences with 3d printing, you can get them for half or less often if you buy them used/refurb.