HUA Missed Constitutional Club Funding Deadline

The Harvard Undergraduate Association opened their club funding applications on Thursday, blowing past a constitutionally-mandated deadline to begin the club funding process.

Last fall, students approved a constitutional amendment setting the deadline by which student organizations must request HUA funding “10-14 days after the start of classes.” But in their Thursday announcement, the body set a deadline of Oct. 10 — more than five weeks after the beginning of the semester.

In a Thursday night statement on behalf of the body, HUA Co-President Ashley C. Adirika ’26 attributed the delay to technological issues.

“While our Finance Team worked diligently to meet the deadline set forth in last year’s referendum, several unforeseen technological issues within our grant system made this impossible,” Adirika wrote. “We are grateful for the student body’s patience as we worked to resolve these issues.”

She added that the announcement was made “in light of this morning’s SAF allocations,” which Harvard Assistant Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership Andy Donahue confirmed were delivered Thursday.

Though the announcement came hours after The Crimson reached out to the HUA regarding the delayed launch, HUA Co-Treasurers Tobias Elbs ’27 and Sahil Sood ’27 wrote in a statement early Friday morning that the body “always intended to release the submission portal this week, expecting the technical issues to be resolved by then.”

On Sept. 17, two weeks after the first day of classes and on the day the funding application should have closed per the constitutional clause, Elbs and Sood — a Crimson Business associate — wrote in an email to club leaders that they had not yet settled on exact dates for when the application would open or close.

“The deadline for Fall 2024 Semesterly applications will be around the beginning of October. We will confirm the exact date when we officially open the application, which will hopefully be later this week,” Elbs and Sood wrote.

In the email, they also asked club leaders to begin filling out supplements to the grant application, which consist of a breakdown and justifications for funding requests.

“The only challenge was with the submission link, which is now resolved, allowing the application submission to go live,” the pair wrote Friday.

Several club leaders expressed a range of feelings — from frustration to indifference — about the delay.

Hugo L. M. Hinze ’26, the business manager of Harvard Model Congress, said while HMC is “not reliant on the HUA money being super punctual,” the delay in the club funding process makes it harder for HMC to budget for its fall social events since the club does not know how much money it will receive from the HUA.

“We usually use this money towards social events, especially with the new recruits that we’re getting from comp, which has happened two weeks ago now,” Hinze said.

“The issue isn’t as much that the money isn’t on our bank accounts super quickly, but that it’s super delayed when we find out how much money we’re getting from the HUA, because that tends to be really variable,” he added.

Alessandro M.M. Drake ’26, treasurer of the Harvard Undergraduate Italian Society, also said that delayed funding decisions may disrupt the club’s ability to plan its budget.

“The delay is a little frustrating just because your information is delayed so that means you don’t really know what kind of budget you can plan for throughout the semester,” Drake, a Crimson Arts editor, said.

However, Drake also said the delay “hasn’t affected us a whole lot,” noting that “most clubs function on the fact that they’ll get around the same amount of budget as they did the year prior.”

Some students said the delay in the club funding process may give clubs more time to assess their financial situation before having to submit the request for funding.

Aditya Tummala ’26, co-business manager of the Harvard Undergraduate Research Journal, said knowing how many new members the club has recruited before it has to submit the funding request could allow the club to gauge the amount of money to request from the HUA.

“Having the grant applications due post recruitment is probably a good thing because it allows you to gauge how much money you need,” Tummala said.

However, Tummala said the funding deadline is “kind of a double-edged sword” because an earlier deadline for clubs to submit the funding application would help ensure the process occurs before “people get really busy with midterms.”

“I think earlier on in the semester is probably a little bit better, as long as it’s not too early. I think there’s a balance,” Tummala said.

Hinze, who applied for HMC funding from the HUA for the last two semesters, said the HUA should streamline the club funding process and implement the referendum reflected in the HUA’s constitution.

“I think most of the lack of transparency is in regards to the timeline, where it feels like it’s different every semester, and it also is never communicated super clearly in advance when things are due,” Hinze said.

“I think it totally makes sense — the rationale of the referendum — and I think it’s important. It seems like the way it is right now, it doesn’t actually seem like it changed. If anything, compared to last year, it’s worse,” he added.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.

—Staff writer Adithya V. Madduri can be reached at adithya.madduri@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @adithyavmadduri.