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Writer's pictureTerry Withers

Student Activity Fee: How To Secure Funding For A Professional Improv Event At Your College Or University


So you’ve decided you would like to bring a professional improv group to your campus for a show, a series of workshops or a class. First of all, great decision! It sounds like you are someone who likes fun!


As you no doubt know, The Radical Agreement Project is proud of its stable of senior, master level improvisers that it tours with to colleges, including current and past weekend performers from theaters like UCB, Second City and other reputable improv comedy institutions across the US. Our main offering is a four person cast that performs a 60-70 minute set of Side-Splitting, Earth-Shattering, Mind-Blowing-Right-Out-The-Front-Of-Your-Face, Hilarious Improv Comedy, which comes (amazingly) with as many as four advanced improv technique workshops taught by the best in the business.


It isn’t an inexpensive show.


And that’s often where student run improv groups end their exploration of bringing a show to their campus. But it doesn’t have to end there. In fact, if you are willing to put in the leg work, the elbow grease and the passion, I can all but guarantee you that you can get your school to fund exactly the show I described above.


THE STUDENT ACTIVITY FEE THAT YOU PAY ABOVE YOUR ALREADY VERY HIGH TUITION


Every major college and university in the country charges their students a student activity fee above their already very considerable tuitions. This fee is used to fund clubs, special events, and on campus programs meant to enrich students’ on campus experiences. Anecdotally, I was going to write that I’ve seen it as high as $50 a student a semester and as low as $20. 


But then I decided to Google it. And my jaw dropped.


At StonyBrook University the fee is $99 a student and it adds up to over $3.5 million a year, as explained in this reddit post by a student leader serving in the student government. The post explains why it is critical for them to start charging more.


$99 is high, but seems quaint compared to Cornell’s $424 student activities fee, which puts their  average activities budget at just North of $9 million. I’ve booked shows at Cornell before and you wouldn’t believe it, but every single time they’ve had a tight budget that semester. Go figure.


Even in instances where the fee is more reasonable, it can nonetheless add up to breathtakingly large budgets. At North Carolina State University, where students pay only $30 a year, its activities budget accumulates to over a million dollar activities budget thanks to the institution’s enrollment of 34,000 students.


The point is, there is no lack of funding for activities at colleges and universities in America. There is, in fact, a great abundance of such funding. 


Finding where the funding resides and in what portions at your institution of higher education is the real trick to getting an event booked at your college.


SHOULD MY COLLEGE TEAM PAY FOR THE EVENT USING ITS STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSIGNED BUDGET?


No.


Absolutely not. 


In my experience, student run improv groups are always underfunded with typical annual budgets ranging from a couple hundred dollars to possibly $2,000, but even $2,000 is rare. That’s too low given how much other student organizations receive. 


For example, at one large State University the total amount of funding a student run improv group can apply for is capped at $4,500 or 1/1000 of their entire 4.5 million dollar activity fund. Meanwhile a different student org annually receives 58% of the entire fund every year, or 2.6 million dollars a year!


So the answer isn’t for improv teams to spend their paltry share of the activities budget to bring in a show. In fact, I’ve helped groups apply for more of their own funding in the past, not so they could bring in a show, but just so that they would be more appropriately funded and able to travel to more festivals, buy better tee shirts, do some or more online marketing, or otherwise enhance their routine improv activities.


If you think your club is underfunded and would like to strategize about how to win a larger budget, feel free to ask for my assistance. I would love to help by consulting with you, pro bono! It is just good for improv for college teams to be better funded.


(I might do a follow up post on tips for growing your improv group's annual budget - be on the lookout!)


Sometimes, in very rare instances, colleges will insist that special event funding go through a club which adds the cost of the event to their existing budget. This is an okay route to move in, but only if you are able to sequester your existing budget and only if you are expected to spend what is added to that budget.


Okay, but that's only in rare instances.


Given that, where can the funds come from then? Well, every collegiate bureaucracy is different, so there is no one answer. But I can work with you to figure out the answer at your college and there are a few likely sources listed below.


THE STUDENT PROGRAMMING BOARD


Often assigned an acronym like CAB, SAB, UPB, or PUB your school’s student programming board is sure to have a lot of funding. It typically has so much funding, that I normally recommend you look there first. 


In fact, the student programming board is the student organization that receives 58% of the activity fee at the large state university I mentioned earlier. To put this in perspective, even if I charged your school my full fee of $8,000 for a 4 person improv show (which I rarely do) it would amount to less than a third of one percent of that budget. In accounting that is what is known as a rounding error.


Or in laymen’s terms, no big deal. Seriously, the board could probably pay for an improv event by simply buying one or two less pizzas at every other event they fund.


You should be armed with the board’s total annual budget if you ask them to help bring a show to campus, so that the true paltriness of your request is front and center. Even when it is, boards and their advisors typically begin such a conversation by saying that it can’t happen due to budget, scheduling or other reasons that may sound more definitive than they actually are.


That’s why it is best to ask open ended questions rather than Yes/No questions when speaking with board members or their advisors. Here are some examples:


  • How does the Board decide what entertainment to bring to campus?

  • When does the Board decide each semester’s programming and are there any holes in the current semester’s calendar?

  • How can student groups partner with the Board on programming?

  • Does the Board value input from student organizations on which entertainment to select and how do they receive such input?

  • What can my organization do to have a better chance of partnering with the board?

  • What avenues are there for me to join the board?

  • If it can't happen now, when do you think it next could happen and how can we work together to make sure that it does?


It is also smart to see if your team has any natural connections to the programming board. I’ve had presidents of the improv team also serve as the president of the programming board. Sometimes a team member will have a roommate or study partner or best friend on the board. It is smart to ask your entire team to think about who they know on the board and to have separate conversations with those people while also going through official channels.

A Student Activity Fee Pie Chart That Can Help Analyze Where Funds For An Improv Show Can Come From
A Student Activity Fee Pie Chart That Can Help Analyze Where Funds For An Improv Show Can Come From

THE STUDENT ACTIVITIES OFFICE


Sometimes programming boards will have smaller budgets. In such instances the next most likely location of the lion’s share of your student activity fees is your Student Activities Office. Sometimes this office is known as Student Engagement or Campus Life or Student Life.  


A surefire sign for finding the right office is the titles of the staff in it. You are looking for Event Coordinators, Engagement Coordinators or Activities Coordinators. Probably anyone with the word Event, Activity or Engagement in their title is a pretty good person to talk to.


Depending on your school’s size and particular bureaucratic preference, they may tell you that there is an application to fill out for event funding, or a different type of student board to petition or that they personally decide what events to bring to campus.


Whatever avenue they direct you to, the same questions listed above are good ones to ask. And the same tactic of checking whether anyone on your team knows people or are themselves involved in these possibilities is again advisable.


THE STUDENT GOVERNMENT


Sometimes the student government will be in charge of the entire activities fee. In this instance, not only will they disperse your annual budget but they will also oversee all special event funding. This should be a separate expense you apply for and not part of your annual operational budget.


Student governments tend to be very responsive to student programming requests, especially if you present your request in a professional manner including a budget, itemized breakdown, cover letter and a brief description of why the program you are hoping to fund will be beneficial to the student body and overall campus life.


This avenue can feature longer decision making schedules, but it is quite likely to work in your favor. As before, asking probing questions aimed at how to make the event happen and leaning on personal connections are smart moves.


GRANTS & SPECIAL INITIATIVES


As if these aren’t enough options, schools often have budgets set aside to award special grants for specific purposes. Perhaps the grant seeks to enhance art appreciation or academic curiosity. If no other funding source seems likely, it is easy enough to bend an improv show's format to meet a grant’s purpose.


Your school may also have a budget for events that keep students on campus at times they are likely to otherwise be at parties that feature drinking and other recreational pastimes. Or for a dozen other purposes that are difficult to imagine but not difficult to sniff out with some dedicated Googling.


And there you have it! That’s the lay of the land when it comes to finding funds on your campus for student events like a professional improv show with workshops. If you search through the options I’ve listed here and doggedly pursue funding options (by doggedly I mean making a call, sending an email or attending an in person meeting once a week for a few weeks) you will almost always succeed in securing the funding you need in a given semester.


If you don’t, then guess what? You’ve built up your case for the next semester and what didn’t work out this semester will almost definitely work the next semester with far less effort.


This was a long post! Phew! Congratulate yourself for reading through it!


And do something you enjoy to reward yourself, will ya?  Maybe watch some great improv videos here or play some student improv games with my ridiculous improv bots here.

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