Student organization funding FAQs

Any active registered student organization at the Ann Arbor campus can apply. Organizations don't have to be considered a graduate/professional student organization with CCI. Any member of the organization can apply, but we recommend that an authorized signer do it.

We don't accept applications from individual students or from student groups that aren't registered as student organizations with the Center for Campus Involvement, such as informal departmental student groups, research workshops, or labs. (If you want help with the process of making your group a registered student organization, we'd love to help—there are many benefits to doing this. Email us and let's chat.)

We review applications as they come in; there's no deadline. There's no "start date" for a pot of money either; in the recent past (last 2-3 years) we've been able to fund applications that merit funding throughout the year. 

We are able to review and decide on most applications within 5 business days. However, in some cases, we need up to 3 weeks. We ask that you wait until the 3-week mark has passed before you reach out for an update—however, at that point, please do reach out, as it's possible that your application slipped through the cracks (we're human too). 

Applications submitted during (or in the week before) breaks—specifically fall, Thanksgiving, winter, and spring breaks—will take longer. We do review applications during spring/summer.

We do ask that you apply, and be reimbursed, within a reasonable time of the event. For example, don't apply in July for an event in November of the following year, and don't apply in April for expenses you already incurred in September. There's no specific timeline, but we'll deny funding and/or reimbursement if the dates are egregiously far apart.

We don't have a complete ban on any types of expenses, other than the expenses that SOAS does not allow student organizations to spend their funds on, which are as follows: political campaign activities, staff salaries, illegal activity, for-profit activities, charitable donations to organizations outside the University, alcohol and tobacco products, and religious exercise. These are all listed in the SOAS Guidebook.

However, we are less likely to fund food and beverage expenses. Why? The costs of food and beverage quickly balloon, and while we understand it's important to getting students to come out—we have food and beverage at many of our own events—we don't feel these expenses are the best use of our limited funds. That said, you can apply for food and beverage expenses, and we will fund them if they are appropriate, so don't feel discouraged from applying for them.

Finally, we are also unlikely to fund expenses for which we feel a free equivalent is available through the University, so ask around to see if there's something available before you apply for something that costs—there are more free resources available here than you might think!

We don't have any specific caps—on individual expenses, on an overall amount for an event, or on an amount to an organization per semester/year. However, we're unlikely to be able to give you more than about $2,000 a year, and usually don't give more than $1,000 per application. 

You should apply for what you need, but keep in mind that we may have concerns about funding events that seem like they may significantly change from how they're described in the application if we only gave a fraction of the request. So if you ask for a large sum, be sure to mention how you'd fund the rest if we only fund some of it and/or describe how you'd change the event or program to account for your limited budget.

Need more? See below (under "What if my application isn't funded, or I need more funding than the maximum RSG can give?").

Yes, you can apply for as many items as you need. In fact, to reduce our workload, we ask that you submit only one application per event or program, rather than submitting multiple applications for different items for the same event or program. 

No. We consider equally items you have already purchased and are seeking reimbursement for, and items that you want to purchase but need the funding to buy.  We may reach out for clarification if it's an item you purchased a long time ago, but as long as it's within the last few months, past purchases are just fine.

You will, however, need to purchase the item before you receive the funds, unless you tell us and we agree that this would be an undue hardship for you—see further down on this FAQ page for more.

Yes—you will need to submit proof of payment on our form before you can receive the funds. 

You don't need to have proof of payment when you apply, and there won't be a place to attach it there, but before you can receive the funds, you will need to send us proof of payment. 

The proof of payment needs to show the following:

• Who you paid, such as the store or the online vendor

• How you paid, i.e. was it a credit card, charge to your SOAS account, or what?

• What you paid: the total amount

• When you paid: date of transaction

SOAS also requires that the expenses are itemized, as there are many expenses that the University cannot cover (alcoholic beverages, for example). If it's unclear what you paid for (i.e. it's just a receipt for a payment at Target), we require it too. It's okay to have these ineligible expenses on your proof of payment; you just need to make sure you identify and subtract them.

Note that we can't accept things like unpaid quotes, invoices, or estimates, or unpaid reservation confirmations. They do not show a payment, so we can't confirm that you paid. If it is all you have, and it has already come out of your SOAS account or posted to your personal credit card, you can combine it with the journal entry from your SOAS Dashboard/a printout from your credit card account and we can probably accept it. If you paid some other way, contact us for assistance and we might be able to help.

Remember: this is the process to get the money from us into your SOAS account. We don't make direct payments. You will have to go through a separate process with SOAS to get your members reimbursed. For more information about that, visit the SOAS website. 

We understand it may be a hardship for you to pay upfront and be reimbursed. Unfortunately, the University has not implemented a solution to this, even after members of your RSG leadership have advocated for years to come up with a method of reducing the burden on students. 

In some cases, we may be able to advance you the funds. If you send us a screenshot of the balance of your SOAS account and explain the situation, giving us what you plan to buy, what other funds you'll use (if applicable), how you plan to pay, and any other relevant information, we can consider advancing the funds. 

The cases in which we will consider advancing the payment are when you will be paying with your shortcode. This allows you to avoid paying out of pocket at all, instead charging directly to your SOAS account, like using a debit card. You need funds in your account to do this, so us advancing the funds does help you in this case. Vendor payments and services rendered payments are also eligible (these are much less common). 

We generally won't advance funds for expenses you'll be paying with a personal credit card and seeking reimbursement. The "bottleneck" that causes delays with these payments rests with the University's antiquated payment systems, not with our processing. Therefore, us advancing the money does not actually speed up your payment at all. When we receive your proof of payment, we approve and transfer the money quite rapidly. This only adds another 3-4 days maximum to your processing timeline—the real delay will be when you submit a purchase request to SOAS to be reimbursed and you have to wait for a check. SOAS quotes a check being ready within 5 business days (which doesn't include the time it takes in the mail), but in our experience, this is not an accurate estimate, and it actually takes much longer. 

We're sorry that the University inconveniences you this way, and we wish we could do something about it. If you applied for the funding but you personally can't afford to pay out of pocket and wait to be reimbursed, we encourage you to ask your other members if someone may be willing to put it on their card. Some students earn rewards on their credit card and enjoy putting extra expenses on their card to earn extra rewards, and may be eager to pay the expense. Neither we nor SOAS are concerned with who is paying for the expense as long as it is a student; we only need the proof of payment and their information to reimburse them.

RSG closes out its fiscal year on June 30 along with the rest of the University, so we close out all student organization awards then. Please submit proof of payment for any awarded funds around a week before then; otherwise, your award may be subject to cancellation.

Applications submitted during June may be held until the new fiscal year based on when we expect you would incur the expense. Keep in mind that you can always apply during the new fiscal year (starting July 1) for prior year expenses, as long as it isn't too far back, so there's no harm in holding off if you don't think you'll be able to submit proof of payment quickly.

We send all funds to your SOAS account as a transfer from our own SOAS account. Once you receive the funds in your SOAS account, you can spend the money through a purchase request. 

Visit our funding criteria page for our criteria by which we make student organization funding decisions.

We are an entirely graduate student run organization, so we understand how financially difficult graduate school can be, and we know that organization finances can be challenging, because we're a student organization too. 

We're sorry if we're not able to fund your application—in many cases, it doesn't reflect on the quality of your application. It's simply that we can't fund everyone who applies. It may also have been that we felt your application didn't fit our funding criteria closely enough—the most common case is when we receive applications for events and programming that we don't feel is targeted specifically towards graduate students. 

If we were able to fund you, we're glad we were able to help, but we know it might not be enough. 

In either case, a great place to start is more general student organization funding source here (cap: $10,000). Deadlines, policies, and more are available on the website.

Another resource is the Center for Campus Involvement's funding sources list. Many of these funds have far more to give than we do, although they sometimes have more stringent requirements than us. You'll want to consult the administrators of those funds for more information.

You can also talk to your department administration (the person who you would ask administrative questions about any fellowships or stipends would be a good person to start with) as they may have some limited funds to support graduate student activities.

Please note: We don't offer an appeals process, nor are we able to offer specific feedback on your application.

You can email us at rsgtreasurer@umich.edu if you need to make an edit to your application, but in most cases, it's not necessary.