ALLOCATIONS 

All Class Councils, the Campus Life Committee, and the Elections Board must submit an allocation application for Fall 2011 by Sunday September 25th at 12:00 noon to the VP of Funding (Kevin Zhai) at klz2104@columbia.edu. The application must consist of a one-page PDF[1] document that

(i)                 demonstrates holistic considerations of the semester’s programming,

(ii)               demonstrates careful financial planning,

(iii)             provides informed estimates of costs,

(iv)              accomplishes all of the above in an easily readable and accessible manner.

The purpose of using a free-form application as described above is to give groups the flexibility to craft an argument and present it in what they see as the most compelling manner possible. The application must contain the following logistical information:

  • Name of the group.
  • Name of the President or Chair of the group.
  • Total amount requested for Fall 2011.

While it is not required, it is recommended that groups also provide the following information:

  • Statement of goals for the semester.
  • Historical trends in budgeting.
  • Event-by-event breakdown of spending, including contingency planning.
  • Event schedule for the semester.
  • Justification for all numbers provided.
  • Visual presentations of data in the form of charts, graphs, etc.
  • Explanations of how events will benefit their constituencies.

The Funding Committee will review the applications on Sunday September 25th and then vote on the allocation amount. When voting on Group X’s allocation, members of the Committee that are also members of Group X must abstain in order to mitigate conflicts of interest. The allocation decisions will be communicated to the individual groups by Sunday September 25th.

Applications and final allocations decisions (including a majority opinion for all groups and a dissenting opinion for all groups where the Funding Committee vote was not unanimous) will be released to the CCSC website (yourCCSC.com) within a week.

SPENDING 

In order to provide an extra level of spending oversight which has thus far not existed in CCSC as well as to create a set of formal documentation that can be released to the public for the purposes of transparency, all CCSC members that must fill out a “CCSC Internal Expenditure Approval Form (EAF)” prior to making any expenditure. This is a Google Form, the corresponding spreadsheet for which will be accessible by the public.

The instructions at the top of the form (link) are:

Groups can check their approval status on the publicly accessible Google Spreadsheet, a link to which will also exist on the CCSC website. The amount approved will be provided in Column Y (highlighted in the screen capture below) by the VP of Funding.

As groups will be spending from their allocations, over which they have discretionary control, reasons for denying funds will be limited to:

(1)   unnecessarily excessive spending (i.e. when cheaper options are available),

(2)   lack of the requisite preparations to hold a successful and well-attended event, and

(3)   lack of clearly stated objectives for how the event will benefit their constituency.


[1] Note: The one-page limit will be strictly enforced – no applications exceeding that length will be accepted. Microsoft Office documents can easily converted into PDF format by File > Print > PDF > Save as PDF. If the document has been hand-created, it can be scanned and converted into a PDF format. Scanners are available throughout campus: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/facilities/resources.html.