The Associated Students of Madison Finance Committee held a forum Tuesday for representatives of student organizations to give feedback about the process of applying for grants.
The Finance Committee faced a funding shortage earlier this year when allocating event and travel grants for Spring 2013, and only had the resources to give money to four of the 12 Registered Student Organizations that applied.
Finance Committee Chair Andrew Kidd said in the future, the committee may try to maximize the number of groups receiving funding, for instance by instituting a policy limiting travel grants to one per RSO.
At the forum, RSO representatives said they were confused over how to properly complete the grant applications.
Kidd said the committee is exploring different ways to increase its outreach to organizations and help them navigate the application process, such as through training seminars.
Kidd and other financial representatives also stated the importance of helping organizations create accurate budgets.
Student Services Financial Committee Chair Ellie Bruecker said in a previous semester, many RSOs were given more money in events grants than they needed, but protocol prevented the Finance Committee from redistributing the approximate $70,000 of unused event grants to other organizations.
Bruecker and Kidd said they would also be open to exploring structuring changes that could allot this unused money to other RSOs.
The committee also discussed the importance of educating organizations about additional funding sources organizations they can utilize besides the Finance Committee.
“I think putting those resources on the ASM website is probably the number one thing that we want to do right now,” Kidd said.
The committee will take feedback from the forum into account when they go over policies and procedures in the coming weeks, Kidd said.
