The Student Organization Finance Committee, the Duke Student Government body in charge of student organization funding, has changed its approval model for the 2023-24 school year.
However, some student group leaders are unhappy with the changes.
Instead of applying for the annual budget at the end of the spring semester for the following academic year, student organizations now request funds monthly. These requests are deliberated in monthly hearings held by SOFC.
SOFC created three categories of student organizations based on their membership: open, selective and competitive. Each of these categories has different funding policies.
Junior Ayanna Chatman, chair of the SOFC, said that the new process was created based on problems student organizations faced in the past year. SOFC then proposed this new process, and it was approved by DSG. Chatman says that SOFC is already seeing progress with efficiency and ease of funding requests.
“They're being more precise about the things that they want… It's making the process much easier, and groups are also becoming more efficient with the way that they apply for their funding,” Chatman said.
SOFC doesn’t currently have a formal way of submitting feedback to hear how student groups feel about the new process. However, Chatman states that she hopes groups feel free to comment and ask questions during the hearings.
Chatman has also received feedback from students approaching her around campus.
“We are always getting feedback,” Chatman said. “Whether it's in the more formal setting of hearings and stuff like that, or whether it's just people coming to ask us questions.”
Matt Mohn, a senior and one of two presidents of the Duke International Relations Association, and finds the new process cumbersome for his organization.
Mohn says that because of the new turnaround time between funding requests and approval, DIRA, a designated selective organization, is unable to properly plan for competitions, membership capacity and trips.
“One of the things that's really damaging about the system is it goes month by month, and that's as close to two weeks before we're supposed to be going on these trips,” Mohn said. “We're basically totally uncertain, and I think that that is going to make it really difficult for us to plan going forward.”
Mohn has seen struggles with the new reimbursement process and how long it takes. He states that this reduces their flexibility as people are hesitant to spend money on behalf of the club due to the long waiting period for reimbursement.
Junior Caitlin Dougherty is the debate junior president and leads a club in the competitive category. She has found that the new funding model is an extra step her club has to take throughout the year, but remains open to its possibilities.
“I’m happy if it can benefit other organizations. I'm definitely willing to take on that learning curve, if the general consensus is that it's beneficial,” Dougherty said.
“I would love for it to be faster. If there was an option for even more rolling funding … once a week or something like that, it would definitely be a lot easier for us, rather than having to be on that monthly schedule,” Dougherty added.
On the other hand, Dennis Wu, president of the stargazing club, finds that the new funding process has been beneficial for his club, which is in the open membership category. He says that the new system gives his club more opportunity to receive funding.
Wu still has similar complaints as other organization leaders about the turnaround time for funding. He says that the long turnaround time makes event planning difficult.
“There's instances where we get approved during the hearing, and there's nothing left for us to do to get the funding, but the process takes like two weeks,” Wu said.
SOFC has only been using this new process for three months, and Chatman says that the committee will wait to see how the process plays out in the long run before deciding if further changes are needed.
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Aseel Ibrahim is a Trinity first-year and a staff reporter for the news department.