With clubs losing a prime resource for funding, some look to student government for support
By JORDAN POLTORAK— campus@theaggie.org
When Adam Hilt, a fourth-year political science major, took over as president of Slaughterhouse Comedy, a student sketch comedy group, he knew he wanted to expand the club’s focus and hold larger events for the public.
“This is our first real year as a club,” Hilt said. “We’re trying to get our name out there, but we don’t have many resources.”
When a club or other student organization wants to put on an event or spend some money, their first destination is often the Club Finance Council (CFC). However, while the program, overseen by 13 undergraduate members who approve funding to Registered Student Organizations (RSOs), is supposed to help fund activities throughout the year, it often runs out of funds well before then. Now, some clubs are looking to other outlets, including ASUCD, for funding.
In February, Hilt attended a CFC grants workshop run by Center for Student Involvement (CSI) staff members to learn about the process for applying for a grant. At the beginning of the spring quarter, Hilt spoke with the CSI reservation and grants specialist.
“That’s when they told me CFC had run out of funding,” Hilt said. “They had told us in the February workshop that there was always a possibility that this would happen, but I didn’t know how likely that would be.”
For the 2024-25 school year, $170,000 was allocated for CFC. More specifically, $152,000 came from ASUCD and $18,000 was contributed by Pepsi, according to Lian Boos, director of the CSI. Their funding does not come from tuition but rather from ASUCD’s base fee, voted on by students in 2020.
In order to receive money from CFC, an RSO must be in good standing with the CSI, fill out an application and attend an intake meeting. The CFC members then vote on whether to approve or deny the application, RSO officers then sign a financial agreement and provide an expenditure report. Finally, CFC provides the RSO with the money and fills out the expenditure report. This year, CFC was able to fund 119 requests before running out of funds. These clubs range from cultural RSOs to sororities and fraternities to career readiness clubs.
As of the beginning of this quarter, they have used “over 100% of the $170,000 budget,” according to Boos via email.
“ASUCD funds are distributed first, and once we exhaust ASUCD funds we supplement with Pepsi funding,” Boos said.
In a presentation given at their budget hearing with ASUCD at the end of last quarter, CFC said they received 112 applications last school year from RSOs and 170 this year. This increase in applications also came with a nearly $40,000 increase in allocated funding.
The presentation also stated that their approval rating for funding requests sits at 75%, and that the average amount of funding an RSO receives is $1,800, with 19% of RSOs receiving $3,000 — the maximum amount that can be given to an RSO annually. For the 2025-26 school year, CFC has asked for additional funds in order to cater to increased demand from RSOs.
ASUCD Senator Amrita Julka, who was appointed as an ex-officio member of CFC, began to work with Hilt so that the Senate could help them receive funding for their showcase. Officers of the Slaughterhouse Comedy Club worked with Senators Mia Cohen and Julka to write Senate Bill #78. The bill originally provided the funding for props, costumes and the event venue.
CFC sent letters of support to clubs, including Slaughterhouse Comedy and the East African Student Association, but indicated that they could not financially support them.
“CFC has promised a select few clubs money, and then they ran out,” Julka said at the May 7 Senate meeting. “Those clubs have been coming to me. […] I believe it was about eight clubs that were in this situation.”
Hilt had to meet with the Environmental Policy and Planning Commission, which requested to review the bill because the requested purchases would be made by Amazon. The commission has previously expressed concerns over online purchases from the company on environmental and ethical grounds.
“[The commission] sort of tore the bill apart,” Hilt said. “It never felt like we were really given a chance to talk about what we were trying to do, and we were already being treated like a hostile third party that was trying to swindle ASUCD from their money.”
Ultimately, the props budget was cut, though ASUCD did fund the venue. The bill passed at the May 7 Senate meeting, with only one “no” vote.
Slaughterhouse Comedy’s show went on as scheduled on May 30 at the Wyatt Pavilion, and Hilt was optimistic that with the funding received, the event would go well. In the meantime, until CFC can start allocating funds once more, RSOs will have to rely on other means.
“$360 is still a massive amount of money, and we are happy to get anything,” Hilt said. “But, it was kind of stressful to go from, ‘We’re gonna get all of this stuff paid for’ to now scrambling to have more fundraisers and try and get funding from wherever we can find it.”
Written by: Jordan Poltorak — campus@theaggie.org
