Student organizations should see a money transfer in their accounts very soon, a result of SGA’s newly-implemented Project HOME. This $61,600 initiative will assist registered student organizations (RSOs) with operation costs.
Approved by SGA on Wednesday, Oct. 11, Project HOME, which stands for “Helping Organizations Move and Excel,” provides $200 to all active RSOs, Greek life organizations and club sports each semester as a way to support student life through extracurricular activities. Danny Nguyen, senior marketing and communication double-major and student body president, emphasized that with Project HOME, SGA can benefit student life in a meaningful way.
“The beginning of the year, around August, we were looking into ways where we could impact student life in strategic and impactful ways,” Nguyen said. “That’s where kind of the idea of this Project HOME came out.”
In order to determine how much money to dedicate to this initiative, Nguyen and Caterina Mora, senior business analytics and technology and international economics double-major and student body vice president, led an extensive budget analysis this past summer. The SGA budget was updated with this year’s financial allocations to ensure Project HOME directly benefited students.
Mora noted that SGA carefully considered the increase in funding, as its importance was clear from the number of funding proposals RSOs proposed in the past two years.
“Now that we don’t have the constraints that the COVID years brought to campus, it’s a year that organizations can be back to normal and be back to doing all their full events. So why not help them now?” Mora said.
The initiative will support all organizations, but smaller or more recently established organizations can skip asking SGA for funding for minute expenses. Simmi Chadha, coordinator for student organizations and leadership, noted that smaller organizations often have limited resources.
“This can also eliminate some of the financial barriers that come with joining a student organization, such as paying dues,” Chadha wrote in an email. “It benefits our new student organizations that would normally start off with no money in their organization account.”
While the proposal was unanimously agreed upon at the meeting, each senator had their own reasons for passing the initiative. Andrew Phillips, junior SGA senator and earth systems science and theatre double-major, noted the campuswide impact was a primary reason why he’s a proponent of the project.
“Normally I try to talk with people who wouldn’t have a stake in this, but this is a bit more difficult because everyone would benefit from this. That was my thought process. If everyone would benefit from this, then it’s probably a good thing,” Phillips said.
So far, Project HOME has been received positively by student organizations. Aaliyah Jones, sophomore political science major and Black Student Union (BSU) class representative, noted that this initiative will help her organization expand.
“Obviously [Project HOME] can help financially,” Jones said. “It also gives us the feeling that we have support from other orgs, especially SGA. SGA is really big on this campus and knowing that they made this initiative to help student orgs, it really helps build that relationship [with SGA].”
Funding is often a key factor for RSOs who have ideas for their events but don’t have the money to make their ideas a reality.
Nguyen noted that on-campus events strengthen the campus community, and Project HOME hopes to emphasize that.
“We could say last year was the warm up year where things are back to normal but everyone was still a little rusty,” Nguyen said. “We’ve seen the blood, sweat and tears the students put into creating these magnetic great events. We’re interested to see if Project HOME alleviates any of that stress, and then as a byproduct, [if] it helps them create really successful events.”
