School funding for Greeks

[AOX81]

One of the members of my sorority had been working with the Greek Life coordinator to get some funding for all of the Greek organizations on campus. Today we found out that the Greek Life coordinator will no longer be working at our University.

She has to go in front of the chancellor and give a proposal for Greek funding. This will make or break if we get funding.

What she needs from the organizations on my campus is the following:

Why you think we deserve this money?
What we will do with it?
What we do for the community, this campus, and much more.

Can anyone else think of valid and/or persuasive points that my sister can present to the chancellor?

Thank you!

[GreekGuide]

AOX81,
I am beginning my Graduate Assistantship in Greek Life in a couple weeks. I come from an advertising and marketing background.

One of things that we are going to work with the students on is accountability. By that I mean something valid to present to the chancellor is a recap or results from any activity that you did this year.

For example, if he/she says why do you need $10,000 for Greek Week. You can say,

Well, last year the money that funded Greek Week enabled us to implement programs such as the Campus Blood Drive that raised 5200 pints of blood for the blood bank - that amount could save XX many lives.

We also held the Dance marathon and silent auction that raised $150,000 for various local charities which translates into XX new parks, XX meals for the disadvantaged.

Administrators like to see results. If they give you money will you just spend it or will you translate it into positive outcomes for the students and community.

The point is use specific dollars, numbers, amounts. Not just, we put on a canned food drive...how many cans, how many mouths are fed. By the way 15 pounds of food feeds a family of 5.

Ideally, this would take the form of a written report including an executive summary that could stand alone. If you need help with this, I'm sure any marketing/advertising/PR student or professor would be of service.

The first year you do this, it will be a challenge and time-consuming. But after the first report, you can do it in your sleep.

PM if you need any help.

[lifesaver]

Great advise. We finally got our IFC and PHC chartered while I was an IFC officer. Chartering was important for us, because it put us on the level with Student Gvmt, Campus Programing Board, DanceTeam, Ambassadors, Orientation Staff. (Chartering meant we were a university sponsored student org, vs being a Registered Student Org, only "recognized" by the university.) We were eligible to get funds, parking spots, etc. It was a good thing. We brought lots of speakers and the other CSO's were more wiling to do stuff with us if we were a CSo. The campus Programming board is even a co-sponsor of greek week....which means they pay for half of it. Cool.

[AOX81]

I don't know why my school is making such a big deal out of this. We only have 3 social sororities and 2 social fraternities. We don't spend any money on Greek Week and it's not like we're asking for a million dollars. The only reason that we are asking for money is so we can distribute information to the underclassmen about Greek Life. My sorority raised money last year to send out mailings to all of the incoming freshmen on our own because everyone else were being a bunch of slackers.

We have always had support from Student Government, Campus Programming Board, etc. because a lot of the people are Greek...so that is not really an issue.

Thank you for your replies. I WILL certainly work your ideas into the letter that I am writing.

[GreekGuide]

Budgets are extremely tight in higher education. They look to all areas to make cuts.

It's not that they don't trust you, but they are accountable too. If they give you, say $1000 for mailings, they need to report up to their supervisor and to their supervisor and so on.

Everything comes down to the bottomline. While $100 here or $500 there doesn't seem like a lot to ask...it is when some higher education institutions are looking at employee cuts, program cuts and furloughs, etc. to just survive.

I say just go with the flow.

Showing your Chancellor that you are responsible and accountable and having results to prove it will only make you look that much better in his/her eyes.....which could open up the door for a lot more funding in the future...which could result in more chapters, more programming and more resources in terms of staff and education.

So, whether you are asking for $50 or $1 million...always treat it like it's $1 million.

The same goes for the real world.....

Also, another suggestion....show cost comparisons. If you are doing mailings, show the bids from three vendors for printing and mail service and show the quality of work they do. Then the chancellor can't say, "$1,000 for that, I know a printer who can do it for $100."

BEST OF LUCK FOR YOUR FUNDING....

Remember, BACK-UP, Back-UP, Back-UP...documentation is key.