Mini-Project 1: A Working Season Budget Model

Open a blank Google Sheet and build a budget that actually does math, not a static list. We will use FIRST’s official Median Team Budget figures (Rev. Aug. 2025) so your numbers are defensible to a school treasurer or a sponsor.

Step 1 — Income and expense sheets. Create two tabs: Expenses and Income. On Expenses, enter FIRST’s official median line items for a Regional team in columns A (item) and B (amount). These are the exact figures FIRST publishes:

Line item	Amount
Registration fees (initial + events)	$9,000
Travel expenses	$8,000
Robot & prototyping parts	$5,000
Field & game pieces	$400
Outreach	$500
Other (shirts, team fun)	$1,000

In B8 put =SUM(B2:B7). You should get $23,900 , the official median Regional total. (FIRST’s District median is $17,400 — driven mostly by lower travel of $3,500 — and Outside North America is $56,300, where travel alone is a median $28,000.) Add a comment on the registration row noting the 2026-2027 base registration is $6,500 worldwide and each additional regional event is $3,200, so a team doing two regionals pays $6,500 + $3,200 = $9,700; FIRST’s reported median registration for regional teams rounds to $9,000.

Step 2 — Scenario toggle. Real teams plan a base season and a stretch season (extra event, championship). In D1 put a data-validation dropdown with Base and Stretch. In column C, use =IF($D$1="Stretch", B2, B2) and then override the travel and registration rows for the stretch case (e.g., add another $3,000 event registration and more travel). For championship, add a row FIRST Championship attendance and gate it with =IF($D$1="Stretch", 5000, 0) strictly as a planning placeholder — FIRST’s median-budget sheet does not publish a fixed championship fee, so confirm the current championship cost with your Program Delivery Partner before committing real numbers.

Step 3 — Income and the gap. On Income, list committed funds (school allocation, returning sponsors, signed grants) and pending funds separately. Then on a Summary tab compute the number that actually matters:

Fundraising gap = Total expenses − Committed income
= Expenses!B8 − Income!CommittedTotal

Color the cell red with conditional formatting if it is positive. This single number drives every fundraising decision you make this season.

Step 4 — Build a surplus line. FIRST explicitly advises ending the season with a surplus to seed next year. Add a target like =Expenses!B8 * 0.10 and treat it as a non-negotiable expense, not leftover.

Start from FIRST’s official Budget Template (linked from the Median Team Budget page) if you want a head start, then layer these formulas on top. The discipline of formula-driven budgeting means when a sponsor adds $2,000, you instantly see the gap shrink instead of recalculating by hand.

Key takeaways

• FIRST’s official 2025 median budgets are $17,400 (district), $23,900 (regional), and $56,300 (outside North America) — use them as a sanity check.
• 2026-2027 registration is $6,500 base worldwide plus $3,200 per additional regional event.
• The one number that matters is the fundraising gap: total expenses minus committed income, recalculated automatically.
• Budget a deliberate ~10% surplus line so you can start next season without a cold-start fundraising scramble.

This lesson was adapted from learnfrc.com.