module 12 of 14
Most teams do not fail because of bad engineering — they fail because of bad operations: cash-flow surprises, tax mistakes that can revoke nonprofit status, sponsors who quietly walk away, grant applications that get rejected for avoidable reasons, and knowledge that evaporates when seniors graduate. This module is a field guide to the real pitfalls FRC teams hit on the business side, each paired with a concrete debugging workflow and a fix. Learn from other teams' expensive mistakes instead of repeating them.
Common Mistakes & Troubleshooting in FRC Operations is module 12 of 14 in the Business, Operations & Fundraising guide. It picks up where Worked Examples & Mini-Projects: Build Your Team's Business Toolkit left off and hands over to Advanced Techniques & Case Studies: Building a Hall-of-Fame-Caliber Program. Its 5 lessons are about 125 minutes of the guide's ~20 hours.
what is behind this tab
you can read them out of order, nothing is locked
landed on the wrong one?
This is the Business, Operations & Fundraising one: 5 lessons, about 125 minutes. The modules below share the name over completely different material.
| no. | module | lessons |
|---|---|---|
| pre | Foundations: Nonprofits, Budgets, and Teams | 3 |
| 01 | Team Structure & Leadership | 3 |
| 02 | Project Management Through Build Season | 3 |
| 03 | Budgeting, Finance & Fundraising | 3 |
| 04 | Sustainability, Documentation & the Business Plan | 4 |
| 05 | The FIRST Impact Award | 3 |
| 06 | Understanding the Cost of an FRC Team | 3 |
| 07 | FIRST Grants & Sponsorship Programs | 3 |
| 08 | Winning Corporate Sponsors | 3 |
| 09 | Grant Writing, Fundraising Events & Crowdfunding | 3 |
| 10 | Stewardship & Long-Term Sponsor Relationships | 3 |
| 11 | Worked Examples & Mini-Projects: Build Your Team's Business Toolkit | 5 |
| 12 | Common Mistakes & Troubleshooting in FRC Operationsyou are here | 5 |
| 13 | Advanced Techniques & Case Studies: Building a Hall-of-Fame-Caliber Program | 5 |