Success cases and stories to convince your school to give you cash!

[Aaron@Kaist]

Hello FSAE'ers!!!!

Another message coming from a first year team, we were sincerely hoping the veterans could help out once again. In the process of deciding whether to sponsor your team or not, some of the questions potential supporters could or would ask would be...

a) why should we support your program?
b) what kind of educational value does your program have?
c) if we sponsor and help you, we have to help everyone else, what makes your program so special that we should fund you?

the bottom line is, only fsae'ers know the true educational value of our program, and as all of you may have felt, there is so so much to learn in this program, that it sometimes feels hard to transfer those feelings and knowledge about how good this program is to others.

As a solution to this problem, my idea was that success cases and potential tracks for post FSAE members well documented and presented to sponsors could be a great help in support acquisition. I'm sure many of you have done this to some extent during your presentations to your schools etc, but I was hoping we could compile a huge list in addition to ideas and suggestions from various members on how to show your supporters the educational value of this program.

I'm confident these articles and success cases can be used by both new starting up teams, and old school teams to gather and acquire more and more support each year, so if you have any articles, success cases, even comments, it would be greatly appreciated not only by our team but other teams as well.

Thanks so much for your support

Sincerely,
Aaron Park
FSAE project Manager
KAIST k-alpha "#27"

[Aaron@Kaist]

Hello FSAE'ers!!!!

Another message coming from a first year team, we were sincerely hoping the veterans could help out once again. In the process of deciding whether to sponsor your team or not, some of the questions potential supporters could or would ask would be...

a) why should we support your program?
b) what kind of educational value does your program have?
c) if we sponsor and help you, we have to help everyone else, what makes your program so special that we should fund you?

the bottom line is, only fsae'ers know the true educational value of our program, and as all of you may have felt, there is so so much to learn in this program, that it sometimes feels hard to transfer those feelings and knowledge about how good this program is to others.

As a solution to this problem, my idea was that success cases and potential tracks for post FSAE members well documented and presented to sponsors could be a great help in support acquisition. I'm sure many of you have done this to some extent during your presentations to your schools etc, but I was hoping we could compile a huge list in addition to ideas and suggestions from various members on how to show your supporters the educational value of this program.

I'm confident these articles and success cases can be used by both new starting up teams, and old school teams to gather and acquire more and more support each year, so if you have any articles, success cases, even comments, it would be greatly appreciated not only by our team but other teams as well.

Thanks so much for your support

Sincerely,
Aaron Park
FSAE project Manager
KAIST k-alpha "#27"

[jrickert]

There are generally three types of sponsors:

1.) This type of sponsor suppsorts Formula SAE because they think cars and racing are awesome and just want to support some college kids in a kick ass project. They arnen't very concerned about marketing exposure, or what you can do for them. This type of sponsor is the best kind and luckily the most abundant.

2.)Supports because of the educational value and experience. These sponsors are often alumni of FSAE or at least a college level Engineering Program. It is hard to argue with the educational value of FSAE. My grades may not reflect it but i have learned 3x as much about engineering and perhaps more importantly collaboration through FSAE than school.

3.) Supports strictly for marketing reasons. They expect top performance and high visibility. This type of sponsor has a place in F1, NASCAR, etc. It has little value in FSAE. This is unfortunately a mismarketed competition with very low visibility unless you are a top 1% team. Even then sponsoring FSAE is probably not worth their time.

[Dennis Seichter]

jrickert, I think you forgot to mention the most important type of sponsors:

4.) Sees Formula SAE as a recruiting tool and seeks primarily contact to the team members. These are typically large automotive companies who always require a lot of high qualified young engineers.

I would say that about 80% of our sponsor fall into category 4.

Oh, and there is an additional, very scarce type of sponsor:

5.) Has just developed a new technology and wants to test his prototype in the FSAE car.

[screwdriver]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
a) why should we support your program?
b) what kind of educational value does your program have?
c) if we sponsor and help you, we have to help everyone else, what makes your program so special that we should fund you? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My answers to the questions:
a)
That is something the sponsor has to decide. You can't possibly force a reason on them. If they don't see a worthy cause in any of the things you've told them already, they should say so. You could ask, what would spark their interest in the project. If they can't tell you or if the request is unreasonable, the negotiations have broken down.

b)
You are forced to teach yourself advanced knowledge and apply it, in order to succeed. Succeeding in this context means building a car of sorts. Because that's the idea of the competition. WINNING RACES ISN'T.

c)
I really don't like hearing that question. It's full of arrogance. But if it's your qualities they are looking for, you have plenty. Just look at yourself. Aren't you all dedicated, hard working, enterprising, passionate, innovative and hard-knock, experienced, battle-hardened, stress-resistant, if you're in it longer.

If they don't comprehend, they probably don't understand how incredibly complex the task of designing and building a car can be. Tell them. Hand them your design report - just for the sheer volume of it. Open a random page and ask if they understand any of it. And if they do, how long it took them.
Tell them that this is the job you will be doing in the future - building the cars they drive, that is. It's basically: "If you support us now, the cars you will drive tomorrow will be a lot better"

[MikeSadie]

I believe this is commonplace, but at the beginning of every year we create a general and a technical sponsorship packet for distribution to potential sponsors.

The general packet is just a PDF that addresses the basics: who we are, what we do, why we do it, benefits of sponsorship, recent competition finishes, car performance, as well as some goals for the new car. After adding some pictures, it makes for a great tool to email and mail to anyone that might help. This is the packet we give to everyone, especially those not providing us with auto parts or services.

We also make a technical sponsorship packet, which goes into more detail about the actual technology on the car. It showcases how we design, build and test the cars as well as more details about goals. This packet is great for the "Type 1" sponsor, as they are typically car savvy and can appreciate what we do.