ELIGIBILITY AND REQUIREMENTS
Deadlines: October 31, 2026 (applications for Fall 2026) and February 28, 2027 (applications for Spring 2027).
The following criteria must be met to obtain a Student Initiative Grant:
- Groups must either be officially recognized by ASGC OR officially representing a GSAS department, institute, or student council/ government to receive funding.
- Funding may only be used for spending by Columbia students.
- Events must occur in the future and cannot be funded retroactively.
- Events have to comply with University Events Policy and the Student Group Event Policy and Procedure. All event spending must follow the Business Expense Policy. All spending requests must be submitted to the GSAS Finance Office and Student Group Advisor Lucia Espineira ([email protected]) for approval BEFORE making any purchases/expenses.
- Groups may apply for events in the Spring (or a full year of continuous events) during the Fall application cycle, however they will be given lower priority. If groups do not receive their full requested funds in the Fall, they may reapply for more in the Spring.
- Individual student groups or departments are limited to $1000 in each academic year.
- The event should not be political or religious in nature.
- Reimbursements must be submitted within 10 business days of incurring the expense and no later than 120 days from the date of purchase. See reimbursement procedures here.
- All sponsored events must be open to all constituents of the Arts and Sciences Graduate Council.
- At the conclusion of your event, please send the Finance Chair ([email protected]) any photos, flyers, summary, etc. of the event taking place. These items may be used in the future as examples of successful awarded grants.
HOW TO APPLY
Please fill out the Student Initiative Grant Application Form. Please note that many of the questions have a character limit; we suggest that you write your response in a word processing program that keeps track of the character count and then paste it into the form.
SPENDING REQUEST PROCEDURE:
To use your Student Initiative Grant funding, you must submit the Spending Request Form to the GSAS Finance Office and Student Group Advisor Lucia Espineira. When you submit this request, you will be required to enter the following information:
- Student group and event information: name of group, description of event, event date, event location, expected number of attendees, SIG Award Letter
- Vendor/expense details: name of vendor, type of expense (venue rental, catering, supplies, etc.), quote for services/items, whether a contract agreement or letter of credit is required by vendor
- Documented business purpose: announcement or flyer for student group event
Lucia Espineira ([email protected]) and the GSAS Finance Office ([email protected]) will review all spending requests and will reply within 2-3 business days to confirm receipt and advise on next steps. Please provide at least 3 weeks’ advance notice for any payments needed for upcoming events so that GSAS can ensure that your vendor is approved and payment can be processed in time. If you will be paying for event expenses out-of-pocket and submitting a reimbursement request, please review the reimbursement procedure here.
We recommend you always start with the approved vendor list when planning your event. This list contains vendors who have a master agreement with Columbia. These vendors are accustomed to working with Columbia student groups and the GSAS Finance Office will be able to approve and process payment faster to these vendors.
