Funding

There are two steps to a healthy financial life for your organization:

1. Write your Budget

• Gather the budgets and financial statements from previous years' operations or events. Examples of special event and operating budgets are available at the SOFO, in UMC 231.
  
  
• Remember to include the university recharges (GAR and GIR). Recharges are incurred when you spend money from your account. To build recharges into your request for funds, multiply the subtotal of your budget by the current GAR/GIR rate.
  
  
• Gain approval. Student organizations generally seek funding for three categories of activity: operations, special events, and travel. If you are seeking travel or special event funding from student fee sources or administrative sources (or both), your budget must be reviewed and approved by the SOFO before you begin the funding proposal process. Use the Event Proposal Budget or the Travel Proposal Budget to plan the budget for your funding proposal.
  
  Once your planning is complete, come to SOFO to pick up the Funding Request Packet and to obtain the necessary SOFO approval. Student group operations budgets for SGFB funding do not require special approval, but both the SOFO and student fee funding sources will be happy to help you if you need assistance.

• Once you have determined what your categories of expenses will be, have researched and found accurate estimates of your costs, and have obtained the necessary budget review and approval from the SOFO, you are ready to seek funding for your travel or special event.
  
  
• Know your goal. Your goal when obtaining funding from a state source such as student fees is a break-even budget—your expenses should match your revenue. The SOFO returns surplus dollars to funding sources in proportion to the revenue budget once all expenses have cleared.
  
  If the goal of your event is fundraising, you should clearly specify this to campus funding sources.
  
  
• Ask for funds. Several of the organizations funded by mandatory student fees make allocations to special projects, conference travel, or events within the guidelines of the Student Fee Regulations and organizational bylaws. These organizations are the Cultural Events Board (CEB), the UCSU Representative Council, the Council of Colleges and Schools (CCS), Arts and Sciences Student Government (ASSG), and other college and school student governments. For any single event or purpose, student groups cannot receive funds from more than two mandatory fee sources but does not include UCSU cost centers. Also, most of these organizations require two readings of any proposal to pass funding. This adds at least two weeks to your planning time line, so be sure to plan ahead!