Once a year, the university allocates a budget of roughly $615,000 to student organizations. There are over 200 organizations on campus, and all are eligible to apply for a piece of the budget.
The Student Organization Budget Committee (SOBC) will be holding mandatory meetings for organizations interested in receiving funds on Feb. 20th and 21st. Last year, roughly 55 organizations applied for funding, and 45 received their full or partial request.
SOBC occurs once per year. According to Gary Dickstein, the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Director of the Office of Community Standards and Student Conduct, it is meant to provide organizations with their day-to-day operating budget.
While $615,000 may seem like a sufficient budget, it is spread very thinly. Last year, Student Government received $126,000, University Activities Board received $131,000, WWSU 106.9 received $63,000, and the Guardian received $43,000. Other organizations may not have as high of operating costs, but the SOBC still provides some organizations their entire budgets.
Last year, $850,000 worth of funds were requested, but the budget has not increased significantly in 10 years.
“We have more requests for money than we have money to give,” Dickstein said.
Organizations interested in requesting money from SOBC are required to send a representative to the SOBC meeting on either Feb. 20th in Rike Hall 041 from 4-5 p.m. or Feb. 21st in Brehm Lab 165 from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. This meeting will be an informational session where organization representatives will learn about the proposal process, how to prepare and organize their budget requests and how to best present their proposal.
Each organization will have 20 minutes, at a later date, to present their budget request to the committee.
After hearing the organizations’ presentations, the committee, which consists primarily of students and is led by the Student Government Vice President, will vote on the division of the budget.
Questions may be addressed to Gary Dickstein at gary.dickstein@wright.edu or Student Government Vice President Matt Harmon.
