USG funding for organizations, events still complicated process

Originally published: Oct. 14, 2010
Publication: THE GLOBE

Two more student clubs were allocated funds for events and activities from the student government, but some of their requests were slashed, leaving them alternatives like raising their own cash or reducing the scope of their plans.

At Monday's United Student Government (USG) meeeting, both the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and Confluence were granted money, but not as much as they wanted.

SPJ had originally requested $1,271 for activities and items such as member t-shirts, pumpkin painting, a Blogfest event, and funds to attend writing workshop. The organization received a total of $400. The workshop was cut.

Confluence was approved for $675 for funding and their conference was cut as well. The decision to cut the conference was a key part to deciding the amount of funding they would receive. The main conflict was over who the conference was open to, and that would affect the funding. The Confluence conference would be open to all students in the Humanities program, but not to the entire university.


"There are different reasons for the finance committee to not approve funds for organizations. There are certain things that USG cannot fund and those get cut right away. With other events and activities, they look at,‘will this help the entire student body?' said USG President Michael Potoczny, in an e-mail interview. "USG budget comes from the student activity fee. Many activities only benefiting a few students do not get approved by USG because it is not fair to other students."

"We can't keep putting [this] off," the School of Business junior representative, Jon Morgan, said during the meeting, referring to the fact that Confluence had to be given their money.

School of Arts and Sciences junior representative, Anthony Costulas, said during the meeting that they could not go back on previous-set standards, referring to the fact that if USG approved Confluence's conference, they would have to go back and review the funding for other clubs and organizations, such as SPJ.

SPJ and Confluence join the ranks of the other university clubs that have gone through the process to receive their funds and have gotten the fundsinadequatelyapproved.

"We just have a criteria of what every club was going to get judged upon," said Brianne Feindt, USG Treasurer.

The other clubs and organizations that have received their funds are: The Black Student Union (BSU), which received $2,000; the Community Service Club, $600; The Body Christian Fellowship, $455; Mentoring Club, $1,500; En Veux, $738; National Press Photographers Association, $500; Public Relations Student Society of America/Ad Fed (PRSSA/Ad Fed), $1,050; Human Equality/Rights (HE/R), $402.50; World Awareness and Perspective, $435; Point Park Improve Club, $500; Literary Artists, $550; POOF Social Change through Art, $400; To the Point, $945; and Student Alliance for Vitalizing Earth (SAVE), $250. The total amount allocated to all the clubs and organizations at the present time is $11,400.50.

"The amounts differ a lot but a) that's because of what clubs asked for and b) we did say if they're an active club that is known around campus and that does so much, obviously they're going to be able to get more money because they're helping the body, the student body, as a whole," Feindt said.

An e-mail was then sent out to the clubs and organizations to explain why they received the amount of funding.

"The main question that was asked for each club was how would the requested money help the Student Body as a whole. In fairness all clubs were given a certain amount of food if asked and all clubs were given money for apparel if asked. The only request that was taken from many clubs were speakers. The committee felt that to have a speaker come in for over $2000 is large amount of money to give away for an event that we have no idea if it will be successful or not. Because of this the Committee wants to encourage all clubs to fundraise for their speaker to come. If the club shows effort in contributing to the funds to bring in a speaker, the Finance Committee will be more than happy to review the request again and help with the money needed," the e-mail stated.

"All that money is coming from all of our fees that we pay, like our activities fees and stuff," Feindt said. "So obviously everything that the money is going towards needs to benefit all the kids that put that money in. So a lot of the clubs are more active than others so just to put that into account, too."

USG funding for organizations, events still complicated process