Resource:How to create and administer an undergraduate student incubator and fund

Establish a relationship with university leaders
    •    Intro (short paragraph on why you needed this connection)

As with any large change in a university, you need a university individual with influence to help champion your idea. Establishing an undergraduate student incubator is no different. University officials are infinitely more likely to support an idea already supported by a prominent university figure then they are to support enthusiastic students. The trick is to land that first influential supporter and then expand from there.
    •    People (who you wanted to connect with)

The leaders of the engineering school(s), as well as the business and medicine departments come first. Leaders of the entire university work as well, such as the presidential role, but these are rare and, surprisingly, not as valuable in the early stages. The value lies in the ability to influence others to agree that developing an incubator is a good idea. Sometimes, presidents in a college are not as influential as the leader of an engineering, business or medical department head in this regard. However, everyone has to come on board during the late stages of a given incubators opening to show a strong community level of support.  
    •    Materials (what supporting data or materials you brought with you to meetings)

The basics, laid out plainly. Why you want an incubator, what it can do for the school, what you need to open it and why that is a good investment, when is the soonest it can be open, how they can help.
    •    Process (what steps you took and who you interacted with)

UCSD’s was not student initiated and had large departmental support from the beginning. It started with a donor gift which then gained momentum. The mechanical and aerospace department and computer science department took on a joint effort in developing the center and hiring full time staff. Space was allocated and a committee was selected to hire on the initial director of the center.

    •    Timeline (how much time it took from idea to connection)

The full process took around half a year to build, hire and open the center, which is quite fast.
    •    Results (what happened as a result of your connection)

I came on mid-stage as the incubator was being built. I helped with design, layout and organization of the undergraduate student groups to get the first cohort going. This resulted in me being hired on part time as a student advisor, then later as a more removed consulting role as commitments drew me elsewhere.
    •    Follow-up (what plans exist to maintain that connection)

I still consult for the incubator, speaking with the director about overall goals and how to implement them near term.
    •    Lessons learned and tips for others (what worked and what didn’t, and your recommendations for others)

It’s all about that first influential connection. Once you get that, you’re golden. Never discount the value of a good presentation for why an incubator is a good thing. Many will doubt your cause initially but then will readily join in on the band wagon once some other noteworthy person has supported you. Everything after that – be it finding/building space, raising money, hiring staff, accepting teams – all becomes easy (relatively, of course).

Run a club or organization
    •    Intro (short paragraph describing your club)

TEDxUCSD was a group of 19 that created and held the first ever TEDx event on campus. In our first year, we raised 35 thousand dollars and had 18 accomplished speakers at our event of more than 500 attendees.
    •    Need and goal (what you did to continue to assess the need and how this would fill that need)

Ambiguous question, but the goal was to create an awesome event for the UCSD community, then do things to support that.
    •    Academic support (what kind of support is needed to maintain the club)

Three individuals are key: a banker, a lawyer and starter. A starter is someone who gets you going, who knows places on campus where you can get that early funding, who can help you book venues and convince universtiy leadership that this is a good idea. A lawyer is someone who can help you figure out all of the contracts. This might not happen for every student group, but ours was doing big things, and people wanted assurances that they were all going to work out. Legally binding documents are scary, unless you have someone to help walk you through them. Lastly, you need a banker: someone to help manage your university accounts, to help companies use a universities 501c3 status to donate as a tax write-off, to help prioritize five-digit costs and timetables. Students need help with all of these things, so make sure you have those three people if starting an influential group.
    •    Audience (who joined the club)

18 core members, 20 volunteers the day of the event, 18 speakers, 550 audience attendees.
    •    Leadership (who leads the club, and what leadership roles exist)

Dual-president role, followed by 4 groups of 4: finance, media, marketing, speaker relations.
    •    Faculty (academic mentors or liaisons)

Again, three individuals are key: a banker, a lawyer and starter.
    •    Space (where the club meets)

Registered student organization with access to dozens of meeting rooms on campus.
    •    Activities (what activities does the club lead and/or partake in)

A TEDx event.
    •    Promotion (how the club membership is promoted to other students)

Facebook, twitter, flyering, setting up a table during “university club day”, word of mouth
    •    Maintenance (how you keep members interested and engaged)

Everything revolves around the event. If you don’t like your task, we can either try to transfer you to a different one, or take someone else onto the team. This is fine, we understand people have other commitments, but we take advantage that we have a waiting list of 50 students at a time with submitted applications who want to get on the team.
    •    Connections (how your club connects with other organizations, the university, and the community)

Joint org events featuring 2 speakers and 250 audience members. We represent our university. TEDxSanDiego was afraid we would steal too much of their audience because we got so big.
    •    Lessons learned and tips for others (what worked and what didn’t, and your recommendations for others)

Go big, even if its your first year. Get a large team to help you, 4 members for every 100 individuals you plan to host.  </div>