0.3 Budget, sponsors and presenting your team

This page is for the mentors and team members who handle the team's budget and sponsorship work.

At the end of the last lesson we said that parts, a place to work and taking part in tournaments all cost money. This lesson looks at those costs and at ways to cover them.

What you need money for in a season

Over a season you may run into these costs.

• Tournament registration fee
• Tools you will use in the workshop
• Robot parts and materials such as bolts, nuts and cables
• Spare parts and materials that get used up as you work
• Travel and accommodation for tournaments in other cities

If your school workshop already has tools, if you have parts left over from last season, or if there is a room you can work in, the list gets shorter. Once you separate what you have from what you do not, you are left with the gaps you will ask for support with.

We will cover where each part comes from in 0.10 Sourcing, and the separate costs of traveling to the world championship in the 0.15 Going to the world championship lesson.

Who you can ask for support

Your list of gaps also tells you who to approach. You can start looking for support close to home. Your school or the organization you belong to may cover part of the costs, mentors and parents may help with some of them, and the school's alumni and people the team knows may introduce you to a business. From there you can widen out to businesses in your district, and then to companies you do not know at all.

The need itself also points to candidates. For a part that needs cutting or welding, you can go to a workshop that does that work. For electronic parts, you can go to a company that sells them. If you are going to a tournament in another city, you can go to a transport company. Support does not always come as money, either. A business might cut your part on its own machines, or an engineer might set aside time to look at your technical questions.

Reaching companies

You can reach companies by email or through LinkedIn. On LinkedIn you can find the accounts of companies and of the people who work there. Having your current work on the team's own LinkedIn page can help the person reading your message get to know your team.

You can also attach a file that introduces your team to your first message. The attached sample sponsor introduction file is made to be filled in, and you can change it to fit your team.

Sample first sponsorship email

The text below is an example you can use when writing to a company you have not talked to before. The parts in square brackets are fields you fill in yourself.

Subject line [Team name] FTC robotics team, request for a sponsorship meeting

Dear [contact name],

My name is [full name]. I am [your role on the team] on the [team name] FTC team at [school or organization name]. Our team has [number of students] students and competes in FIRST Tech Challenge, an international robotics program. Each season, students design and build a robot for a newly announced game and compete against other teams at tournaments.

This season we are preparing for [team's season goal], and we are looking for supporters so we can keep our work going. Support can be financial, or it can come as materials, manufacturing or services.

I have attached our sponsorship file, which describes our team and what we can offer in return. We would be very glad if you could look at it and, if it suits you, meet with us briefly.

Kind regards, [Full name], [team name] [Contact address and phone]

Because the request is sent in the name of the organization the team belongs to, get the organization's approval before you send a message like this.

After you reach out

Not every company you write to will reply. After a while, sending a short reminder or calling them is the way to keep the conversation going. If you had a meeting, putting what was discussed and what was promised in writing is reassuring for both sides.

When support comes in, write a short thank-you after the tournament. It is enough to say what the support was used for, which part you bought, or what kind of day the team had on the field. If you share the team's work on social media, you can mention your supporter there too. If other people appear in your photos and videos, make sure you have their permission.

The people who will do all of this are the team members themselves. In the 0.4 Building a team and registering lesson we will look at who makes up a team, which organization it sits under, and how registration works.

Extras

• Sample sponsor introduction file PDF · DOCX
• Resources and printables