GSC Funding

The GSC receives student dues every term (except Summer) from Caltech. As of 2019, these dues are $19/grad student/term. These dues are paid by advisors as part of the overhead of having a graduate student in their lab. With these dues, the GSC puts money towards each of its committees (Academics, Advocacy, Social, and Communications) to execute on programs for the graduate student body, as well as a significant portion (~30% as of 2019) into clubs and events. As a club or student, you can request use of these funds. The GSC provides several avenues for funding activities that support the graduate student community:

  • Club funding can be applied for once a year, before the start of the academic year, and supports general club expenses, as well as pre-planned events
  • Quickfunding requests can be made for impromptu (few days’ notice) events for up to $300
  • Event funding requests can be made for larger events with advanced planning

Please keep in mind that all GSC funding and reimbursement requests you make are public! If you would like to review the GSC’s current balances and allocations, check out the GSC balance sheet⚖️, or if you want to inspect the GSC’s expenditures, you can review the GSC public transaction log.

To support your event or club we ask that:

  1. They are open to the entire grad student community and accessible to an English speaking audience
  2. They are advertised broadly. For events, send an email 48 hours in advance to gradstudents@caltech.edu and it will be sent to all grad student after approval. Your event can also be listed under the GSC calendar & event page: https://gsc.caltech.edu/calendar/. For clubs, attend the club fair, and announce new clubs to the gradstudents@caltech.edu mailing list to recruit.
  3. They are in compliance with Caltech policies⚖️.
  4. You consider complementary avenues for equipment and funding – e.g. equipment rentals from the Caltech Y, and funding from other sources.
  5. Funded requests be sponsored by a currently registered Caltech club or GSC committee. If you are not part of a club, you can ask a related club or the relevant GSC committee chair to let you host the event.

In brief, funding works like this:

  1. Get permission to spend money via club funding, quickfunding, or event funding requests
  2. Advertise your event/club to grad students, do your event, take some pictures, have a good time!
  3. Get reimbursed from the GSC by providing receipts, a picture or so of the event, and some details.

Details about all of these components are outlined below. If you have any questions contact the treasurer (gsctreasurer@).

Reimbursements

All GSC funding is reimbursement based. You can track all submitted reimbursement requests here. Reimbursements typically take about 2 weeks to process. Please be patient! Remember, this is done on the free time of grad students, and still it’s actually faster than getting a check from the administration. Have ideas for how to make it better? Join the GSC! Important: reimbursement requests must be submitted no later than 30 days after the transaction, and all transactions in September of each year must be submitted no later than October 1st of the new academic year. Please see the appropriate reimbursement form below to submit a request for reimbursement. Please note that if your request is for an event, we expect you to provide details about the event (e.g. # of grad students in attendance), as well as pictures.

Club reimbursement form

Caltech requires that clubs be reimbursed through their Bursar accounts. Thus, if you require the club reimbursement, the funds will not be allocated to you directly, rather to your club’s Bursar account, unlike committee reimbursement requests, from which you may withdraw them through your club treasurer. Please direct any questions you have to the GSC Treasurer (gsctreasurer@).

GSC committees reimbursement form

Club Funding

GSC club funding supports budgeted operational expenses of standing Caltech clubs.  For more information about clubs see http://clubs.caltech.edu/

The deadline for requesting club funding for 2022-2023 is 18 October 2022. To submit a request see the 2022 club funding request form.

Quickfunding

If you have an idea for an on-campus event open to all graduate students, we can help make it happen with up to $300. Anyone can apply: individual students, groups of friends, sports teams, and clubs.

  • All quickfunding requests must be received at least 24 hours prior to the event (not counting weekends and holidays). Because the process takes 48 hours, applicants are encouraged to submit their request at least 4 days ahead of time in order to allow time for sufficient advertising.
  • Your reimbursement request should not be more than $300.
  • The event must be spontaneous and not require more than 3 weeks of planning.
  • The event must not have been budgeted for at the beginning of the year (if in the case of club funding). An exception to the requirement would be in the case that the attendance of an event that received club funding was more than expected and as a result the event ran over budget.

If you have read these guidelines, then submit your application by filling out this form. Note that you will need to attach a document describing your request.

Event Funding

Events can also be funded for larger sums. To apply for event funding:
Fill out this form with a detailed proposal. The proposal should include the amount requested, club funding received (if applicable), and club funding spent so far (if applicable).

Funding for Caltech-External Speakers

As of the 2021-2022 academic year, new statutes are applied to the funding of speakers. The entirety of the change can be found here.

Briefly, funding for Caltech-external speakers must be separately petitioned for as an event funding request, subject to vote by the BoD. Speaker funding should be consistent with Caltech’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

NOTE: Your organization must have a Bursar account, with an up to date account number to submit a request. You can check if you have a Bursar account by seeing if your organization is on Caltech’s balance sheet linked at the top of the page.