Budget Committee FAQ

Most commonly you will be asked questions that help ensure your request conforms with CSA budget committee’s financial guidelines. Read these guidelines carefully before making your request! The committee may also provide recommendations on where to get funding or supplies outside budget committee. If you are requesting money to buy supplies or equipment that a different student organization already bought, the committee may decide to cut that portion of your request and ask that you request to borrow said supplies. Finally, be prepared to talk about your plans for how to advertise and run any event you request funding for. Budget committee wants student run events to be as successful as possible! 

It is an issue of accessibility and prioritization. All students pay the CSA fee for three terms of the school year, and yet incoming first year students rarely have access to summer events. Additionally, summer events are often open only to students who are residing in the Northfield area. For these reasons, CSA chooses to narrow the focus of its limited funding to school year events. 

Budget committee believes that it is very important that opportunities provided by off campus events be open to as much of the student body as possible. Student organizations are usually open to most or all of the student body, and are always required to provide applications for attending off campus events to all club members. Associating funding requests with such organizations is therefore a tool for keeping these events accessible. 

In addition to competitions and off campus volunteering efforts, conferences are a subset of off campus events. Of these subsets, however, conferences are most likely to blur the line between providing meaningful opportunities to the Carleton community, and funding “fun” trips for small groups. They are therefore given their own section of guidelines to help CSA funding be allocated in the fairest way possible.