State Funding
 

Hi Everyone in Greek Chat land!

I'm in the process of working on my organization's "Student Organization Funding Request" (SOFC) paperwork, and I suddenly remembered a suggestion from one of my advisors: He said I should ask around about other school's state funds and how GLOs and other organizations go about recieving them.

So, if any schools out there get state funding, how does your school go about dealing out the funds to campus organizations? Ours is a very tiresome process, and I wonder if it's the same at other campuses. We have to make a budget and request everything we want to use the funds for in writing (as an example).

Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks everyone!
~Chibi~

I attend a public university. Our school funds student organization through their omnibus fees. They are distributed by the Student Council. You fill out a budget request packet, which is reviewed by the student council budget committee, and the student council. As Treasurer, I deal with all the budget requests from students.

But I have never heard of State funding at all. If anyone else knows about state funding, please share.

I'm sorry, I could be mistaken. From what I understood from talking to our Greek Advisor was that they the SOFC committee, puts in a request to the school for a certain amount of money. This money does in fact come from the fees charged by the school, but from what I understood (from her), the state gives us some money as well. Anyway, I was just wondering (as I said before), if recieving student funding from other schools was as tedious as it is here. Sounds like you have to go through the same routine we do. Thanks for your input and sorry to have confused you!

it's probably not actually state funding. the university gets money from the state and from student service fees. the state sets rules on how that money gets used, so the terms may just be getting mixed up. it's most likely student service fees and most universities have some sort of process on how it gets used and who gets to use it.

Tedious for orgs, heck yes! I mean they have to have to go to a budget workshop in order to request money. They also have to include a coverletter of their org, the request packet, biographies (for speakers), essays (for travels), quotes for contracts, and 8 copies of the packet to the budget committee. the BC reviews and passes it on to council for approval, which then makes its way the dean of student's office. Then the paperwork starts, which takes about another 2-4 weeks. It is tedious, and even thuogh I am the Treasurer, I have never had the "pleasure" of going through this process from the org perspective.

So yeah...you have to be real patient, because your budget could get denied at any stage!

It's very tedious at SIUE also. Orgs have to attend funding seminars, fill out lots of paperwork, appear before both the finance board and student senate, and then follow up after the program with a written evaluation that must be submitted no more than two weeks later. A lot of our orgs wind up losing funding for the following year because they are late with that evaluation...

The funds were actually given to the student senate and then disbursed by the finance committee after approval by the body. Each Senator represented an organization and was individually responsible for turning in the paperwork that went to the finance committee. I was a Senator for awhile. When I started, the paperwork was pretty simple, but at some point they decided to go to a new system that involved accounting for every single projected expense -- and I mean you had to itemize the fact that you were going to buy paper plates to put the free pizza on when you had a guest speaker, how much these paper plates would cost, etc.

I recall my submission was around 30 pages, most of the stuff, I just made up. Now I understand where the military came up with their $10,000 toilet seats.

It's my opinion that this was the only useful thing that the student senate ever did. We just passed stupid resolutions the rest of the time.