What goes into funding student organizations? How SAFAC functions

Shalala Student Center at the Coral Gables Campus.

The Student Activity Fee Allocation Committee, is responsible for setting the guidelines on what will be funded to student organizations and how money will be distributed among them. 

For most students, the inner-workings of SAFAC are a mystery. How much money do they have to offer and who makes the tough decisions on finalizing a budget? 

Every academic year, all full-time undergraduate students pay the Student Activity Fee, a one time $174 payment that supports the more than 300 registered undergraduate student organizations. Some of this money goes directly to large organizations, like Hurricane Productions and Student Government, but most of the fee goes to SAFAC to be re-distributed. 

This year, SAFAC is operating with a budget of $1.4 million, that can be allocated across various categories to organizations, including travel, food, t-shirts, speaker fees, decorations and more. Within each category a limit is imposed, for example a $5,000 maximum can be requested to cover speaker costs and student organizations can spend up to $10 per member on food.

Regardless of the number of members or role on campus, all student organizations have the opportunity to earn the same amount of funding. However, academic organizations, like honor societies, are often the highest requesters. 

“SAFAC’s purpose is to be equitable,” said SAFAC Chair Doménica Núñez del Arco Abad, a senior studying business analytics and computer science. “We try to make sure that you both have the opportunities to spend the student activity fee,”

SAFAC is currently composed of 16 undergraduate students – 10 delegates and 6 executive board members – and two faculty advisors who meet weekly to review budgets.

SAFAC will not fund legal fees, tailgate items, live animals, taxes, motorized vehicles, alcohol and more. The full guidelines are available at saso.studentaffairs.miami.edu.

These guidelines are subject to change every year, reflecting higher prices of goods and services or what was requested most frequently by organizations. In previous years, the cost allotted to flights and food has increased as a reflection of transportation.

“[Creating the guidelines is] a very rigorous process, it takes a couple of months,” said Núñez del Arco Abad. “We take input from the committee, from the SAFAC e-board, from SAFAC advisers and from the community.”

This year the organization also hosted a town hall to hear feedback from student leaders.