Student organizations rely on school funding in order to operate.
In order to secure funding for their organizations, representatives from each club have to apply for specific dollar amounts and justify what that money will be used for.
When student organizations are not granted adequate funding, organization leaders often find themselves having to scale back their operations or resort to outside fundraising in an effort to offset financing challenges.
The Equinox reached out to various organizations on campus to discuss funding challenges and possible suggestions for improving the budgeting process.
WKNH, the student-run radio station at Keene State College, relies on working technological equipment in order to operate. Maintenance and upgrades are necessary, but often can’t be predicted from a budgeting perspective.
This can cause difficulties when planning a budget since organizations have to pitch an itemized funding request with the expectation it will suffice the entire budget cycle.
Senior Ryan Rotigliano, the general manager at WKNH, said budgeting can be difficult when finances need to last for such a long period of time.
“We budgeted for a year in September, and the next academic year will be budgeted for in January,” said Rotigliano.
“That’s a long period of time to make our funding last, and you have no idea what can change, what expensive hiccups might come out of nowhere,” added Rotigliano.
Rotigliano said clubs are left to train incoming board members to budget, and expressed support for standardized budget training to be offered through the school. Student organizations currently receive finance training from the Office of Student Involvement, which does not cover how to put together an organization budget.
“The school is under the assumption that the people leaving the e-board will be able to train and mentor the new students joining on how to do this, which just isn’t a sustainable long-term model,” said Rotigliano.
“If we had some sort of standardized training in place, it would set the next generation of board members up for success in a way we won’t always be able to guarantee,” added Rotigliano.
Junior Lena Goins is the president of the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Club (ESSC), a new club offering academic and peer-to-peer support for students studying Environmental and Sustainability Studies at KSC.
Goins was tasked with submitting the club’s budget request but received a fraction of the club’s financial goals due to technical filing errors.
“We submitted our budget, but we were told nothing had been received,” said Goins.
“Thankfully we had a spreadsheet and a record, and we were able to prove our submission. Unfortunately, a technical error on their end messed things up, and it took us a while to get anything,” added Goins.
Goins said better communication with clubs, as well as improvements to submission forms, would be helpful going forward.
“I’d recommend getting rid of Google Forms because it’s a really wonky platform to do this on, and it’s susceptible to errors,” said Goins.
“OwlNet and Microsoft have better options for form submission, especially since you can see edit history on Microsoft Excel,” added Goins.
Goins advocated for stronger communication, including confirmation emails.
“We didn’t even know there was a problem with our submission until we took it upon ourselves to reach out and ask what was going on. Going forward, I think confirmation emails when forms are submitted can help with record keeping and keying us in when a potential problem could exist,” said Goins.
Senior Zachary Irving serves as treasurer for the KSC Outing Club and stated the importance of clubs knowing how much they usually spend when attempting to prepare a budget.
“With the exception of a few clubs on campus, there isn’t much of a way for clubs to know how much is usually spent,” said Irving.
“Many board members have no experience with cost tracking, and that makes it hard to anticipate what we may or may not need to spend in order to do the things we need to do. Nobody really tells us, ‘Hey this is what you usually spend, or this is what you spent last year,’ and that would go a long way in regards to helping us plan for the future,” added Irving.
KSC Film Society President Ryan Severn was unavailable for an interview before the deadline.
Ryan Pacheco can be contacted at
rpacheco@kscequinox.com
