As student organizations prepare to host events and welcome new members, many have already been affected by the new funding model the Student Government Association is utilizing for funding requests.
SGA receives a portion of the student activity fees students are charged to distribute to organizations. SGA has an annual budget of $440,000 and divides that into four quarters with a cap of $80,000.
The funding request model was changed last spring to follow a quarterly system, where organizations will have to request money in advance for events and celebrations they wish to hold. The previous model allowed for organizations to request funds on a rolling basis. To receive funding for quarter one, which lasts from June 1 to Oct. 31, organizations had to put in their requests by April 11.
During the first SGA meeting of the year, Vice President of Finance Ian Brecker described how the new funding model prioritizes on-campus events and does not cover most travel expenses, such as hotels, meals and gas for personal vehicles. Movies, nonessential food and supplies are also not being covered by SGA funding.
Brecker did not respond to Elon News Network’s request for an interview regarding reactions to the new funding model and requests being denied.
These changes have impacted organizations such as Cinelon Productions, a student-run film production company.
Cinelon Productions President Sarah Carss said this new way of requesting funding made it more difficult to plan because Cinelon does not host events like other organizations do. Rather than hosting events, Cinelon uses their funding to produce films. For quarter one, Cinelon requested $800 and received half of that from SGA.
“I asked for $800 for one movie, and if we really needed to we could have split that among two films, but now we can only make one film this semester, which is different,” Carss said. “In previous semesters we’ve made four, so we’re going to have to scale back a lot.”
Carss said she has not thought about what she will request for quarter two, and is trying to look for other ways Cinelon can make films without relying completely on SGA funds.
Phoenix Phanatics Treasurer Charlie Stille said he did not find out what Phoenix Phanatics’ budget was until the middle of August, which made it difficult to order supplies because of shipping times.
“I kept emailing them because we're trying to plan everything and buy it, because some things took longer shipping and everything,” Stille said. “I emailed them over and over again, and they eventually got back to me at the end of July, and then they said we'd get our final decisions if we got the funding or not by the end of August. But it was a very difficult process.”
Since getting back to campus Stille said he has been able to get in contact with Brecker over email about what Stille needs to do for funding.
Stille also said SGA has been restricting their funding for food at events, which makes it difficult for Phoenix Phanatics to incentivise students to attend their watch parties and events. Phoenix Phanatics has instead been working on growing their social media pages to reach more students on campus and get them to their events.
SGA will fund food for an event if it is necessary for the event to take place. For example, the cooking club may get most of their requests for food funded because they cannot hold an event without food. For other clubs who may use food as an incentive to get students involved, SGA may not fund that request fully.
For quarter two, Stille said the funding request form is more thorough than it was for quarter one, but some of the requirements organizations have to fill out in the request form are still difficult to gauge months in advance of when the events will take place.
“They also want to know exactly how many people you're expecting, but I don't know how many people we’re expecting for the end of December,” Stille said. “For the basketball games, we don't really take attendance. We have a sign in sheet, but not everybody that goes to the basketball games are going to sign in,”
President of the Latinx-Hispanic Union Edward Hernandez said he was surprised when SGA revealed the new funding model, but understood why the quarterly system would be beneficial.
Since it was implemented, Hernandez said his organization has not received the full amount of money they requested for any of their events. Hernandez said LHU’s first event of the year is an annual birthday party for the organization.
In previous years, the event would cost $950 and would be funded by SGA, but this year LHU received only $63.
Hernandez said the birthday party turned into an event where the board of the Latinx-Hispanic Union presented themselves rather than an actual birthday party. After speaking with Elon Student Involvement, Hernandez was able to spend the $63 on snacks instead of the piñatas they were originally funded for. Hernandez also said that board members pitched in their own money to be able to afford a birthday cake for the event.
“As we did last year, we had a birthday cake to celebrate the birthday,” Hernandez said. “So with that, we didn't get the money for it, but a lot of the board members pitched in about $5 just to get the birthday cake.”
Hernandez said he has spoken to members of other organizations such as the multicultural sororities and fraternities who have expressed disappointment with the funding they have received.
For quarter two, Hernandez is planning to alter the Latinx-Hispanic Union’s events from a drop-in style to events with more substance. For example, the Day of the Dead celebration the Latinx-Hispanic Union hosts usually had food and an activity students could take part in, but for this year's celebration, Hernandez plans to focus on the activity and presenting about what the Day of the Dead celebration is.
Fiona McAllister contributed to the reporting of this story.