So, you have an amazing idea for a club, but no idea how to start one. First, ask yourself a few questions:

1. How much time do you have to commit to this?
   • Starting a club is fairly time-consuming, and paper-work might be the least of your worries. Do you have at least 3 other people for your executive board? What about a Faculty Advisor and a Constitution? And even if you have all of that, you are going to need members, and for that you will have to advertise your club.
2. Are you an Undergraduate student, and how much longer will you be here as an undergrad?
   • USG only deals with Undergraduate students, and only undergrads can be voting members of the clubs we fund. If you are not a student, you will have to find undergrads to start the club for you. You should also consider how much longer you will be here. If you are graduating in the Spring, you won’t be able to get a USG line budget before you leave.
3. How much funding will you need, and what will you do until you are eligible for funding?
   • We love funding new clubs, but we have a process to build a level of trust with our clubs first. For your first two semesters of funding, you will be eligible for a small amount of funding from the SSC (Special Services Council). You can get up to $750 “Base Funding” per semester, or up to $1500 for a specific event. Some clubs are able to get SSC funding in their first semester on campus, and if they apply for SSC again in their second semester, they could be upgraded to a Line Budget as soon as their third semester.

We certainly don’t mean to discourage you, but these are the types of questions you should be asking in the planning stages. The process itself isn’t too difficult, and many new clubs are formed each year.

Before you are eligible for funding, you have to be recognized as a club by Student Activities, which is a department within the University, and has nothing to do with USG. They will walk you through the process, but it looks something like this:

For more details, visit  Student Activities’ website.

Once you are recognized, start thinking about what you might need funding for. Please keep in mind that we limit the amount that you can spend on meetings and marketing, so don’t expect to apply for $750 worth of food and posters. You must use your budget to further your club’s mission statement. There is no mission statement you can create that would convince us to let you spend everything on food, so please don’t bother.

When you are ready, visit the SSC page to create and submit your budget outline. This is your chance to convince us that you deserve a line budget in the future, so please take this very seriously.