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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1986)
Picking up the tab for SCONA By Stacey Roberts StaffWriter Financing for the Student Conference on National Affairs is a year-long process involving many hours of personal inter views, phone calls and some travel. Biyan Tantzen, finance sub chairman for SCONA, says all 75 members are involved in the fund-raising process and are encouraged to participate in at least two fund drive activities. Tantzen, a sophomore eco nomics major, says there is no university funding for SCONA and all funds are raised through the efforts of the com mittee members. Tantzen says there are three main fund-raising efforts. The largest and most sucessfiil effort is SCONA’s use of fund drives. c<1 We begin the fund drives during the spring semester by conducting personal interviews and making phone calls to top businesses around the state,” Tantzen says. “It’s a great op portunity for students to inter act with bank executives and other top entrepreneurs.” Tantzen says students are able to open doors and make contacts normally not estab lished for another 10 to 15 years. “The first people contacted are previous donors, many of which are past SCONA partici pants and are very prominent in the business world,” Tantzen says. “Next we contact referrals of our previous donors and then past SCONA executives.” Students also travel to all ma jor cities in the state and some have traveled as far as New York, Canada and Mexico to so licit donations. “The students travel not only to raise funds but also to get a better geographical representa tion of delegates to the confer ence,” Tantzen says. Theresa Chiang, program di rector of the Memorial Student Center and advisor to SCONA, says last year’s conference was focused on China and four committee members were able to travel to China to get dis cussion ideas, recruit delegates and, inevitably, raise money. “The MSC was sponsoring a trip to China and SCONA loaned money to the four stu dents to go,” Chiang says. Putting on a conference as large as SCONA, which has 150 delegates registered so far this year, is not cheap. Tantzen says SCONA costs approximatly $100,0D0 per year to finance, over half of which is raised from fund drives alone. SCONA’s next largest source of funds is provided by founda tions and corporations. Tant zen says grant proposals are sent yearly to businesses re questing donations. Although approximately $35,000 or one- third of SCONA’s budget is raised this way, this sort of fund raising is affected by eco nomic ups and downs. SCONA was hurt by the decline in the oil industry, Tantzen says, and the conference lost some of its normal contributors. Other types of donations are more stable, including a 31- year-old $3,000 Houston En dowment, a $5,000 endowment from an anonymous donor and a newly created $5,000 RKG En dowment, all received yearly.. Tantzen says a favorite SCONA story involves the Hous ton Endowment which, in ad dition to its normal contribu tion, gladly sent an extra $3,000 a few years ago to help bail the financially troubled conference out. It turned out that SCONA raised enough money to cover expenses so the conference re turned the money to the Hous ton Endowment. “The Houston Endowment was so surprised at the honesty and integrity of SCONA they have been with us ever since,” Tantzen says. “They had never had anyone be so honest befo re.” SCONA’s third way of raising money is through delegate fees and miscelleneous sales such as t-shirts and other parapherna lia. Registration fees are $95, and along with the miscelle neous sales, these sources con tribute approximately $15,000 to SCONA. Chiang says this year’s con ference is close to achieving the full financing needed and is sure there will not be a deficit. A few times in the past, this wasn’t always so, she says. One way SCONA is trying to ensure financial solvency is by setting up permanent endowment fund, a possibility the confer ence is investigating. “As SCONA continues to grow,” Chiang says, “students won’t have the time or energy to contend with fund raising. The endowment would serve as extra security.” Tantzen says the idea for the endowment was conceived last year at SCONA’s 30th anniver sary, where 27 of the past 30 SCONA chairmen were gath ered for a celebration. “So many of our past chair men have benefitted from their experiences with SCONA,” Tan tzen says, “and they are willing to put something back into the organization. They also under stand how important it is for us to stay completely student run, without outside interference from individuals and university funding. We didn’t want the en dowment to come from an in dividual because that some times brings negative connotations.” The goal for the endowment is to raise approximately $20,000 to use as a buffer, not as a yearly source of income. “SCONA’s budget is so large that if we’re off a mere 3 per cent that means we have a $3,000 deficit,” Tantzen says. “If we have this buffer zone, we won’t have to worry as much and if we have a surplus we can put it back into the endow ment.” An advisory board has only met once to establish goals, pol icies and member requirements but will meet officially for the first time during this year’s con ference. Tantzen says there are 12 voting members on the advisory board, including previous SCONA chairmen, SCONA’s ad visor, and the MSC director. There are also three non-vot ing members which include the finance subchairman, the plan ning subchairman and the vice- chairman of fund drives. “Estimates show that SCONA wall make its $110,000 budget this year,” Tantzen says. “That includes the purchase of a com puter to help with our fund raising efforts.”