Club Funding
The Associated Students (AS) at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) plays a vital role in enhancing student life through various clubs and organizations. This club funding website serves as a central hub for student organizations to access resources, apply for funding, and learn about the policies and procedures related to financial support.
Funding Types:
Annual Budget Request
Used for funding to support recognized student organizations, allowing them to host events, meetings, and activities. Applications typically open in the fall with funds allocated for the following year.
Supplemental Request
Used for supporting clubs and organizations with activities, events, and operational costs. This is in addition to the Annual Budget and available all school year.
Philanthropy Request
Used for A CSUN recognized and AS chartered student organization/club can be allocated a maximum of $2000 per fiscal year from this fund to help with their philanthropic efforts.
Transfer Funds Form
Funds may be transferred from one project to another project for student organizations and from one account to another account. One or two transfers or changes of purpose for up to $600 in a given fiscal year can be submitted online.
Step-By-Step Processes
Annual Budget Process:
Step 1: Attend the Matador Involvement Center (MIC) Leadership Conference. This event is scheduled for Saturday, October 12th, 2024. A Finance 101 Session will explain the Annual Budget process during this event. Club leaders should have received a message from the MIC to register. If you cannot attend or have concerns about participation, please contact the Chair of Finance at chairoffinance@csunas.org
Step 2: Submit your Annual Budget Request by December 6th, 2024, at 11:59PM.
Complete and submit the online form to request a budget. All budget requests must be submitted before midnight, as late requests will not be considered. When submitting your request, be as specific as possible. Please refer to the CSUN AS Finance Website for Annual Budget resources. The budget request form will be open from Monday, October 14th, 2024, at 12:00 AM and will close on Friday, December 6th, 2024, at 11:59 PM.
Step 3. Funds Available – July 2025. Notification of the Annual Budget allocations will be posted online, and email notifications will be sent to the individuals who submitted the form by the end of June. Funds will be available as of July, 2025.
Appeal Process:
Step 1: Fill out the appeals form.
Step 2: You will be contacted with further instructions and requests if needed.
Step 3: Determination is made.
Supplemental Budget Process:
The process for club funding has 3 steps and takes about 4 weeks to complete.
- Step 1: Complete the Supplemental Budget form.
- Step 2: Finance Committee meets on Monday at 12pm to consider requests. You will be notified when you are scheduled to present your request.
- Step 3: Senate Meeting will meet the following Monday regarding your request. Your attendance is recommended, but not required. You will have the opportunity to speak for three minutes at the open forum. After the meeting, the Finance Director will email you the Senate’s decision.
- Step 4: Funds should become available one week following the Senate decision. You need to have an Authorized Signature Form and Expenditure Request Form completed with your advisor’s signature.
Philanthropy Budget Process:
- Step 1: Gather the following information.
- Purpose of organization that you are supporting and its acknowledgement.
- Fundraiser Program goals and objectives: A clear statement of the goal of the program/project. All program elements must relate to the goal of the program/project.
- Program: Describe what is going to be done and how it is going to be done, in order to achieve the objectives.
- Program Details: This should include event background information; operational details, and how the program will be administered.
- Specific financial breakdown within each category of expenses and/or revenue. Provide justification on how these figures were developed.
- Requested budget for each category is to be rounded off to the nearest dollar amount.
- Step 2: Apply using this form. Form must be submitted four working days (midnight on Monday) preceding the next regular meeting of the Finance Committee (typically at 1:00 pm on Monday).
- Step 3: We get approval by the faculty or staff advisor.
- Step 4: The Finance Committee hears a presentation by the requestor, and then reviews and deliberates on all properly submitted budget amendment requests.
- Step 5: The AS Senate acts on all financial matters upon a recommendation from the AS Finance Committee at its regularly scheduled meeting, typically one week following the Finance Committee meeting at which the request has been considered.
- Step 6 - Funds should become available one week following the Senate decision. You need to have an Authorized Signature Form and Expenditure Request Form completed with your advisor’s signature.
Fill out the form: The following information is required by the Finance Committee to evaluate proposals:
Transfer of Funds Process:
Step 1: Fill out the transfer form.
Step 2: Once the transfer has been approved, you will be contacted.
Step 3: You can start using the funds
Documents:
Frequently Asked Questions:
- Leadership Development Conferences and Activities
- Speaker/Performance Programs/speaker related fees
- Social Media Advertising/Promotion Costs
- Use of Facilities (On Campus)
- Events where the primary audience is CSUN Students
- Reusable marketing (tablecloth and banner)
- Disc Jockeys and outside event producers
- For profit Activities (i.e. where the intent is to make money for the organizations)
- Decorations (including balloons, ribbons, etc.)
- Plaques, certificates or other awards, including gifts, honorariums, and speaker related travel expenses
- T-shirts or other apparel (i.e. sunglasses, ball caps, etc. often used for giveaways).
- Food, unless it is essential to the nature of the program
- Newsletters, personal business cards, and one-time use banners
- Payment for students, faculty or staff outside of AS, except Chartered student organizations who perform music or dance as a part of an otherwise AS-funded activity, can receive maximum payments up to $1,000 per fiscal year.
- Giveaway items
- Clothing/Apparel - (i.e. sunglasses, ball caps, etc. often used for giveaways or for fundraisers, or items related to community service). This includes items that are of a personal nature (i.e. stickers, individual pins, uniforms, etc.) up to $350.
- Disc Jockey(DJ)/Speaker/Performance Programs/speaker related fees (see Section V. E.1 - ContractedServices) up to $500.
- Social Media Advertising/Promotional Costs (i.e sundial, instagram ads, sundial, etc) $100.
- Use of Facilities (On Campus and off campus) up to $500.
- Decorations and supplies (i.e including balloons, flowers, ribbons, name tags, sponge, etc.) up to $200.
- Food if and when it is essential to the nature of the program (i.e granola bars for 5k runners) up to $350.
- Newsletters, personal business cards, and one-time use banners.
- Payment for Students, Faculty or Staff outside of AS, except Chartered student organizations who perform music or dance as a part of an otherwise AS-funded activity, can receive a maximum in payments up to $500 per fiscal year.
- Any alcohol.
- Airbnb, VRBO
- Events with non 501(c) or related to supporting political parties (reference Code on Finance)
- Fund transfer requests of any kind for intentional use of Philanthropic events. A transfer is moving funds from one project to another project for student organizations and from one account to another account for all other kinds of.
- Speaker/performance programs, art and publications (regardless of the point of view presented)
- Advertising and Promotional Costs
- Use of Facilities (on campus) or equipment (audio-visual)
- Leadership development programs
- Tournaments (not for profit/fundraising)
- Liability insurance for on/off campus events
- Interpretive Services
- Speaker fees
- Banquets, Parties, Meetings
- Group class projects that are part of a formal curriculum (these are funded through the IRA Fee)
- Smaller group or individual projects may be funded through the Student Travel and Academic Research (STAR) Account
- Payment for CSUN students, faculty or staff outside of Associated Students
- Off Campus events
- Events or Services not open to all CSUN students (ticketing is ok)
- DJs, Decorations, T-shirts, Food, Newsletters, One-time use banners
- Conference Travel (please use the separate (STAR) request for conference travel)
- Miscellaneous, Reserves, Contingency Funds
Viewpoint Neutrality:
At times student organizations may seek funding for programs and events that involve expressive activities, including but not limited to speeches, expression of ideas, or viewpoints on issues of public concern. Associated Students funding decisions will not be based on a student organization’s point of view. An organization will not be denied funding simply because its program or event involves expressive speech, or because it advocates a particular opinion, no matter how deplorable or unusual. Rather, a viewpoint-neutral process will be used for evaluating all funding proposals and will only consider factors that are NOT tied to viewpoint such as fiscal responsibility and level of services provided. To ensure the funding process is viewpoint-neutral, the following set of basic criteria has been adopted to guide funding decisions:
- The student organization must present a detailed plan about the activity for which it is seeking support
- The student organization must provide a coherent and complete budget plan for the activity for which it is seeking support
- The student organization activity must be open to all CSUN students
- The student organization must attend its budget hearing
- The student organization must be a University recognized student organization
Viewpoint Neutrality monetary allocation guidelines per fiscal year:
- Guest Speakers/Workshops/Artists: $1,600 Max (with limitation of $400 Max per individual speaker)
- Supplies/Materials: $1,500 Max
- Social Media Advertisement: $100 Max
- Traditional Advisement/Printing Materials: $250 Max (i.e. flyers, sundial posting).
- Reusable Banner: $150 Max
- Reusable Tablecloth: $150 Max
- Matador Bookstore Gift card: $300 ($30 per student Max)
- Note there is a separate funding account for all clubs/orgs for Canva Pro, GoDaddy, and MailChimp. You do NOT need to request funding through the annual budget, or through a Supplemental Funding Request. Each student organization can receive up to one account per platform.
Student organizations may appeal the outcome of the decision for a review by a university official of any contested decision to deny or restrict funding. Please use the following form to submit your appeal.
Fill out the transfer form. You will be contacted once accepted and/or completed. Funds may be transferred from one project to another project for student organizations and from one account to another account for all other kinds of departments or from one department to another department. Changes of purpose are any changes to a department budget which would affect its overall structure or intent. One or two transfers or changes of purpose for up to $600 in a given fiscal year can be submitted online.
Contact Information:
Leslie Ponce
Chair of Finance
chairoffinance@csunas.org