CODING AND PROGRAMMING

Coding & Programming challenges members to design and develop a standalone application that solves a specific problem or accomplishes a defined task.This competitive event consists of a pre-judged portion only on the state level.

Event Overview

Division: High School
Event Type: Team of 1, 2 or 3 members
Event Category: Pre-judged
Event Elements: Pre-judged program only on the state level (no presentation)
Educational Alignments

2026-2027 Topic

Serving the Community: Nonprofit Volunteer Management 

Nonprofit organizations rely on volunteers to support programs, events, and community initiatives. Effectively managing volunteer information, service opportunities, schedules, and participation can help organizations operate more efficiently and increase their impact. 

Use your programming skills to develop a program that helps nonprofit organizations recruit, organize, and manage volunteers and community service activities. Your program may be a command-line application, desktop application, or interactive interface. Choose the platform that best demonstrates your programming skills. 

Your solution should help nonprofit organizations coordinate volunteers, manage service opportunities, maintain records, and monitor participation while supporting the needs of both volunteers and organization leaders. 

District

Check with your District leadership for District-specific competition information.

State

Eligibility

·         FBLA membership dues are paid by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on December 1 (or earlier date specified by District Director) of the current program year.

·         Members may compete in an event at the State Leadership Conference (SLC) more than once if they have not previously placed in the top ten of that event at the National Leadership Conference (NLC). If a member places in the top ten of an event at NLC, they are no longer eligible to compete in that event.

·         Members must be registered for the SLC and pay the state conference registration fee in order to participate in competitive events.

·         Members must stay within the official FBLA housing block of the official FBLA hotel in order to compete.

·         Each district may be represented by participant(s) based on the Florida FBLA scaled quota system found on the Florida FBLA website.

·         Each competitor can only compete in one individual/team event and one chapter event (Community Service Project, Local Chapter Annual Business Report).

·         Only competitors are allowed to plan, research, and prepare their program.

·         All members of a team must consist of individuals from the same chapter.

Recognition

·         The number of competitors will determine the number of winners. The maximum number of winners for each competitive event is 5.

Event Administration

·         Prejudged Project

  • Data must be free of viruses/malware.  Any entry with contaminated data will not be judged.

  • Solution must run standalone with no programming errors.

  • Competitors must provide comprehensive documentation including a readme file, source code, templates/libraries used, and documentation of any copyrighted or open-source material used.

  • Program produced must be prepared by the competitor(s) without help.

  • All individuals on a team must be from the same chapter.

  • Competitors are expected to follow all applicable copyright laws. 

  • The completed project MUST be uploaded to one of the following cloud based storages:  Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox.  You CANNOT host the project on your own server or website.  You must provide a link to your project and directions on how to open and run the code.  It should not be password protected. Your completed project must be uploaded and locked by the date specified in the State Conference registration packet.  You cannot make any changes after the submission date listed in the SLC registration packet.

  • The link to the project must be submitted through the conference registration program by the date specified in the SLC registration packet.

 Scoring

·         The pre-judged score will determine the winners.
·         Judges must break ties. All judges’ decisions are final. All judging decisions are final. Results announced at the National Leadership Conference are considered official and will not be changed after the conclusion of the National Leadership Conference.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

·         FBLA complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by providing reasonable accommodations for competitors. Accommodation requests must be submitted through the conference registration system by the official registration deadline. All requests will be reviewed, and additional documentation may be required to determine eligibility and appropriate support.

Recording of Presentations

·         No unauthorized audio or video recording devices will be allowed in any competitive event.
·         Competitors in the events should be aware FBLA reserves the right to record any presentation for use in study or training materials.

Penalty Points

·         Competitors may be disqualified if they violate the Competitive Event Guidelines or the Honor Code.

National

If you are competing on the National level, be sure to see the National guidelines at https://www.fbla.org/divisions/fbla/fbla-competitive-events/