Clubs must change fundraising methods to abide by law
Jones PitskerStaff WriterAfter Samo’s annual audit, the school was forced to rethink the way clubs fundraise. Now, they will not be able to fundraise the way they have in previous years because the way the Associated Student Body (ASB) has been handling money from club fundraisers is inconsistent with laws governing how fundraising money should be handled, according to ASB Financial Assistant Jenny Nicolas.“We can no longer make donations to organizations through ASB,” Nicolas said. “This was already a law, and now they’re enforcing it. Before, if a club was fundraising for say the Haiti earthquake, they would fundraise and ASB would make out a check to the Red Cross with those funds. Now, student money needs to be used for students, even if students have donated it specifically to charity.”According to Nicolas, the restrictions of club fundraising will have a major effect on the way clubs are run and their purpose at Samo.“I think that the law will mean that clubs will not be able to fundraise,” Nicolas said. “They will have to focus more on raising awareness for their causes and less on getting donations. For instance, the Red Cross club will have to encourage students to make individual donations instead of having fundraisers.”According to Nicolas, there will now be limited ways for clubs to successfully and directly donate funds that they raise to a charity.“ASB can no longer be the middle person in fundraising,” Nicolas said. “If a club wants to have a fundraiser for charity, now they have to bring people from the charity on campus so that students can make a direct donation and it doesn’t pass through ASB.”However, according to Samo Activities Director Verónica Garcia-Hecht, the new fundraising system will not necessarily have a negative impact on students and could even help students and their clubs.“I think it will help to put a face on the cause they’re fundraising for,” Garcia-Hecht said. “If they have a representative from the organization [on campus], it helps students see directly who they are helping and creates more honesty and openness about where the money is going. It might make fundraising more challenging, but it will keep everyone honest.”ASB Treasurer and senior Andrew Capron agrees that the new fundraising system will be beneficial, even if it creates more difficulty for fundraising.“The club must make it very clear that any profits or donations from the event will go directly to the outside organization,” Capron said. “I think that it makes sense, since it is misleading to have an ‘ASB fundraiser,’ for example, and then just decide to donate all profits to a different organization that was not publicized beforehand.”