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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The Central Student Government 

Student Organization Funding Committee 

distributes 
$500,000 
to 
student 

organizations every semester on a refund 

system. 
With 
student 
organizations 

canceling all in-person events following 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s “Stay Home, 

Stay Safe” Executive Order and the 

University of Michigan’s recommendation 

that students return home, it has pivoted 

to refunding as many organizations as 

possible for non-refundable expenses. 

“In cases where expenses related to a 

cancelled event were already paid for and 

cannot be refunded, SOFC will reimburse 

these expenses with valid documentation 

according to our Proof of Payment 

guidelines,” reads a statement on the 

SOFC website. “This policy change applies 

only to expenses that are ‘non-refundable’ 

and have already been incurred.” 

SOFC distributes its funds in nine 

waves over the course of the fall and 

winter 
semesters. 
The 
committee 

decided to maintain funding for waves 

seven through nine, for which student 

organizations must apply by March 23, 

March 30 and April 6 to be eligible for 

SOFC funds. 

Business 
senior 
Crede 
Strauser, 

outgoing chair of SOFC, said roughly 

$50,000 is available for the last three 

waves. Strauser said many student 

organizations are applying for funding for 

expenses not typically covered by SOFC.

“Organizations 
are 
circling 
back 

and applying for expenses they maybe 

hadn’t applied for earlier because of 

their experience knowing that SOFC is 

extremely competitive and they wanted to 

apply for the things they were most likely 

to get funds for at the time,” Strauser said. 

Typically, leftover SOFC funds rolled 

over into CSG’s fall budget. For the first 

time, funding will be available during the 

summer through a SOFC process, rather 

than requiring applicants to apply through 

the Summer Assembly and present their 

plans in person. Strauser projects $7,000 

to $8,000 will be left over for the summer 

term. 

“I think that those kinds of decisive 

actions just helps for a lot of organizations 

to not have that additional concern about 

their organization potentially having a 

negative account balance or potentially 

not being able to carry out their activities 

once they get back to normal because they 

don’t have the funds to do so,” Strauser 

said. 

Michigan 
Movement, 
a 
student-

run non-profit focused on combating 

homelessness and poverty in Washtenaw 

County, had to cancel its in-person events. 

Instead of pausing operations, MIM 

adjusted their work amid the pandemic. 

Though 
MIM’s 
seminal 
MIMKit 

event, which partners with Ann Arbor’s 

Mercy House to create more than 100 

care packages, had to be canceled after 

the governor’s stay-at-home order, MIM 

decided to instead directly provide Mercy 

House with items it needed most. 

LSA 
junior 
Lindsay 
Calka, 
vice 

president of MIM, said the community 

that 
benefits 
from 
their 
work 
is 

particularly at risk during the pandemic. 

“It was kind of like a double whammy, 

where not only is this group already going 

to be suffering effects from decisions made 

for social distancing and shelter in place, 

but we couldn’t do the things that could 

potentially help them in this scenario,” 

Calka said. “We really didn’t have the 

option to just stop. We had to pivot what 

we were doing.” 

Because the items differed from the 

long-term care items that typically fill 

MIMKit care packages, MIM had to 

apply for wave nine SOFC funding. SOFC 

granted MIM only half of what they 

requested, even though this exact amount 

applied for during the eighth funding 

wave was granted in full. 

“I think priority-wise, we should be 

seeing how we can be using our money 

the best way to serve people who need it 

right now,” Calka said. “I know there’s a 

lot going on (in the greater CSG budget) 

but it would have been nice to have that 

exact award met that we were guaranteed 

beforehand.” 

Calka said MIM is working on plans to 

continue serving vulnerable communities 

with less money than anticipated. They 

plan on filling funding gaps left both by 

SOFC and canceled fundraisers by writing 

grants and applying for funding in other 

areas. 

Engineering senior Zeke Majeske, a 

former member of CSG, said the best way 

for SOFC to support student organizations 

during this time is for them to improve 

their process with the newly freed 

time usually spent reviewing funding 

applications. 

“(I hope SOFC) spends as much money 

as they can on organizations and try 

to come up with improvements in the 

process so next semester when it gets 

rolling again, it works even better for 

students,” Majeske said. 

Reporter Julia Rubin can be reached at 

julrubin@umich.edu. 

JULIA RUBIN

Daily Staff Reporter

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DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily

Workers weld materials in preparation for a field hospital at the TCF Center in Detroit Monday afternoon.
SOFC covers expenses for 
student groups amid crisis

Funding committee of Central Student Government works to 
distribute money to different organizations for disrupted events 

2 — Thursday, April 9, 2020

DESIGN BY JONATHAN WALSH

