Navigating funding in the face of budget freezes
On December 4th, the students of Carnegie Mellon voted 97% in favor of freezing the Student Senate budget. As the Senate has scrambled to rewrite the budget, student organizations are exploring alternative ways to receive “Supplemental Funding” in time for their events rather than weeks after. We here at ReadMe are happy to report that an easy and accessible solution has been found. If you’re a student organization struggling to stay afloat in the turbulent political climate of CMU, here’s how you can make some extra club money.
Step 1: Set Up
The first step in making your club’s dreams a reality is finding funding. Now, due to the current budget, you’ll have to forgo Senate and JFC and what some might call “ethical funding methods,” but who cares! If bureaucracy stands in the way of efficiency, I say down with the bureaucracy! We suggest polling your members, seeing what goods they might have to offer. With the overwhelming population of depressed people at CMU, you’re bound to find someone in your organization that has a Prozac prescription. Now, just pawn that off to some guy you met at a shady bus stop one night and voilà! Pick up your new found funds from the agreed upon discreet location.
Step 2: Bypassing Bureaucracy
Now, all this new cash might draw suspicion. You don’t want to get caught up in questions like “how’d you get this money,” “why do my pills keep disappearing,” or “why are you digging around in the dirt between Gates and Newell-Simon.” To bypass this, you’ll want to discretely blend this money into some other revenue source, like the merch you sell on Tartan Connect! Make sure to split the money up into smaller amounts. You want your merch to seem successful but not too successful. It’s even better if you can shuffle it around through your alumni network to even out your profit over time.
Step 3: Cash Out
After the incredibly successful merch drop, simply cash out! Now you have all the money you could ever need to run your club. Maybe one day Senate will get its shit together enough to notice your incredible success but, by then, you’ll be living the good life with all the snacks and supplies you could ever need.
We hope that this simple guide has provided all the small, struggling student organizations (not ReadMe though, we’re loaded) with some hope in these trying times. Best of- ah wait, there’s a knock at the door. Let me get that…