Associated Students, Inc., is giving a new incentive for Sacramento State students to get involved in campus clubs and organizations by increasing the maximum amount of funding.
Legislation to increase the Dollars for Organizations and Clubs grant from $1,500 to $3,000 per academic year was passed on Sept. 9.
The DOC grant funds club functions and help to host special events such as guest speakers, and can be obtained by submitting an application to the DOC Committee.
The legislation was co-authored by Terry Martin, vice president of finance, and Shawn Smith, executive vice president.
"The DOC grant gives financial ability to put on events that promote our same values with ASI and the campus," Smith said.
Also, the ASI board members passed on a unanimous vote Sept. 23 to give an extra $1,000 to clubs that are collaborating to host an event.
This increased the maximum DOC grant amount for club collaborations from $3,000 to $7,000.
When he took office and started to reform the DOC funding, Martin said he incorporated other club leaders' opinions on how to make the DOC funding process easier and more accessible.
In addition to making changes in the operating rule, there were two other changes made. Clubs can now send any member, not limited to a board member, to the DOC meeting and clubs may use the fund for promotional purposes and food for general meetings.
Clubs can also get funding of up to $200 from ASI in urgent cases where they are unable to meet the DOC grant application deadline.
The main purpose of these changes is to get more students to join clubs and increase the overall student involvement in the campus community, Smith said.
One of the main promises Martin made to voters while he was campaigning during the student elections last semester was to make the DOC grant more accessible to club members.
"The reason why I ran for ASI was because, as president of Student Economics Association, I had difficulty securing funding from ASI," Martin said. "It was tedious and overly bureaucratic."
The DOC grant application and filing information is available on the ASI website for club members to download.
By increasing the maximum funding, it would help clubs achieve more success, said Joseph Ross, president of Rotaract.
"I think it's great. They are doing a smart thing by making the changes," Ross said. "It allows us to do more activities and increase projects that were once unable to do because of budget constraint or lack of fundraising ability."
Rotaract is a service club consisting of students who provide community service to the campus and Sacramento communities.
With more funding, Ross said, Rotaract would be able to contribute more to the community as a philanthropy club and have more members.
"By the fact that we can put out more events and community service awareness, and spread philanthropy on campus, it allows us to get ourselves out there and that we are doing good for the community," he said.
Smith said promoting the DOC will help promote ASI and the work that its officers are doing for the campus community.
"We are looking forward to getting the word out about the changes to DOC and get input from the students in general about what they think about ASI and what we could do for them and how we could work better," he said.
Rather than having the grant money go into the reserve because of surplus, Ross said he hopes to see more clubs get active.
By having more clubs host larger events, Smith said he hopes to encourage students to be part of the campus community and organizations including ASI.
"Board of directors are a small amount of students, and we try not to do everything by ourselves but to look to empower other people and leverage all the other club members' strength," Smith said.
