USAC seeks corporate sponsors for large-scale events, allowing more money for student groups

The Undergraduate Students Association Council is preparing to seek corporate sponsorship for large-scale events such as Bruin Bash and Homecoming.

The decision stemmed partly from financial pressures on student programming funds, said Roy Champawat, director of the UCLA Student Union. Ultimately, the hope is that corporate sponsorship for large-scale events will allow USAC to allocate more money to student groups, Champawat said.

The effort is part of USAC’s long-term plan to straighten out funding problems that occurred this year. Excess funds leftover from last year came in lower than expected, Champawat said.

As a response, The Associated Students UCLA voted to allocate $76,000 to USAC in January to help sustain student programming for the rest of the year.

Currently, USAC officers are trying to determine which of USAC’s events could receive corporate funding, said Raquel Saxe, academic affairs commissioner and a third-year political science student.

The council has not yet reached out to any corporations, she said.

“We have to decide how to best sell ourselves to marketers and what we want to get out of it first, before approaching a company,” Saxe said.

Larger events are more likely to receive corporate support because companies can integrate their names and brands into them, said Kenn Heller, assistant dean of students, who has been working with USAC on ways to gain corporate sponsorship.

Bruin Bash, the Enormous Activities Fair and other events during True Bruin Welcome Week are among USAC’s five largest events, Saxe said.

USAC is also looking for potential corporate sponsorships for programs like the JazzReggae Festival, Homecoming, the Textbook Scholarship and Strathmore Safe Rides, she added.

By sponsoring these events, corporations can gain access and promotional exposure to the student body in a way that is different from an advertisement in a newspaper, Heller said.

Some USAC events such as the JazzReggae Festival, put on by the Cultural Affairs Commission, have already made use of corporate sponsorship in previous years, Champawat said.

The process of finding corporate sponsors, however, is a relatively long and complex one, said John Bogaard, executive director of the JazzReggae Festival and a fourth-year art history student.

“It’s a hard thing to do as students because we don’t have connections to the corporations,” Bogaard said. “Typically you’re going to run into a bunch of people who don’t make the decisions before you can get to convince someone with the power to spend their money and spend it on us.”

Possible sponsorships may also change how student events are marketed in the future, Heller said.

Saxe said USAC will be careful to ensure that students will be comfortable with the corporations and their practices. Ideally, the sponsor’s product would complement the intended goal of the event, she added.

“It’s all about community sensibility ““ what’s appropriate for the community,” Heller said.

USAC is looking into ways to be innovative with funds available for student programming and helping student groups do the same, Saxe said.

While USAC’s current goal is to use corporate funds for their own events, the council is also discussing ways to help student groups obtain funding from corporate sponsors, Saxe said.

Ideally, the money from sponsors would go directly into the Undergraduate Students Association Board of Directors Programming Fund, which can then be distributed to the rest of the student population, Champawat said.

But because it is difficult to find companies willing to do this, helping other student organizations find their own corporate sponsors could be another part of the solution, Champawat said.

“We are not pushing students away from our own funding sources,” Saxe said. “We just want to show them what else is out there and help them to reach out to these organizations.”