Student Group Guidelines for Activities
These guidelines were last updated May 16th, 2025
Please refer to our FAQs before contacting SCOMSA regarding changes to our guidelines
General Guidelines
- All events you host using SCOMSA funding must be open to and benefit the entire BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine student body. Your event must be aligned with your group’s stated mission.
- Your group must be officially recognized by the Student Affairs Office and SCOMSA. For a list of approved groups, please visit the website.
- Adhoc funding may be requested to cover events that were not declared as a part of the semester budget request process or additional costs that you anticipate for a preapproved event.
- All outside sources of funding must be documented and reported to SCOMSA. Total funding from SCOMSA and external sources cannot exceed the total costs of the event (i.e. you cannot make a ‘profit’ from the event).
- Any event that receives SCOMSA funding must be posted to the Student Activities Calendar. The link to do so can be found on our website (‘Activity Calendar’).
- It is your responsibility to ensure that your event’s time does NOT exceed the two event maximum for any given time slot posted on the Calendar. You are not permitted to host any events at the same time as an academic obligation such as a class or exam review.
- All students must have the ability to attend your event as you are being funded by money that comes from all BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine students. Thus, they must know that it is happening and there must not be restrictions to attend (e.g. prior membership in your group).
- The fiscal year ends on the last day of June and begins the following day.
- All funding from SCOMSA requires prior approval. SCOMSA reserves the right to partially or wholly deny reimbursement requests submitted without first obtaining funding approval (see ‘Request Funding’).
Ineligible Expenditures
- Travel within Boston (unless your group is designated as a Service-Learning Group)
- Items and food for fundraising and recruitment.
- Fees, travel costs, lodging costs, and gifts for guest speakers
- Amazon orders (including Amazon Fresh) and all food orders are eligible for funding but CANNOT be purchased by students – all Amazon/food orders MUST be made by the Student Affairs Office. Please reference the ‘Ordering’ tab for further information. Absolutely no exceptions.
- Gift cards (except as prizes or for other similar uses – see “Purchasing Food”)
- Operations and expenses for organizations other than the funded BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine student group(s)
- For example, funding can never be provided for Boston Medical Center’s operations, research, or patients even if directly related to the group receiving the funding (e.g. a service-learning group transporting patients to their clinical program with SCOMSA funds is not permitted. BMC is expected to find funding themselves for this purpose).
- When funding is provided for a joint event in collaboration with other schools (e.g. SPH, GMS, Dental, Tufts, Harvard etc.), BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine student groups are expected to request funding, material assistance, or other contributions from that other school that is equal, or greater, in value to the funding provided by SCOMSA. The other school’s contribution should be explained in detail in the funding request. SCOMSA funds come from medical student activity fees and should only benefit medical students unless other collaborators provide real contributions.
- Money for printing flyers, handouts, or other materials on A4 printing paper – utilize your free student printing money instead. Only in cases where there is a legitimate reason that this is not possible will requests be entertained.
- Bottled water. In the interest of sustainability, please request attendees to bring their own water to events. If ordering from Chequers, please ensure that your order does not include bottled water.
Purchasing Food
- Interest/intro meetings, trainings, workshops, demos, and orientations are not eligible for food.
- All food purchases must be for in-person events.
- Student Groups are capped at $200/semester for small-scale event food funding from the semester budget. Larger events may qualify for additional funding as delineated elsewhere in these guidelines. If you only host one event that requires food, that event is only eligible to receive $100 in food-specific funding.
- Any additional food funding that your group desires must go through the adhoc process. The amount you can receive is equal to $200 – {Amount already allocated}.
- An additional $25 will be added to the food budget for each student group that you co-host the event with. This is capped at $50 max. The groups you are partnering with must request this money through an adhoc request.
- You may spend your food budget across the semester however you like. For example if you have two lunch talks you may spend your allocated funding as $100/$100 or $150/$50 etc. However, the total must still be the same and you cannot spend this budget on an event not approved under the semester budget.
- Please note that any food items purchased for non-food uses (EX: gingerbread houses or food used for demonstration purposes) may be considered to be “Supplies” funding, which would not count towards the food budget limit.
- Gift cards should never be used as a replacement for food and will not be approved for virtual events. Use of gift cards should be rare and only as prizes or other similar situations.
- Food purchases can ONLY be made by the Student Affairs Office (see ‘Ordering’). Student leaders are NOT permitted to purchase food themselves and SCOMSA reserves the right to deny reimbursement partially or in its entirety.
Identify the subsection that is relevant to you below:
Semester Budgets
- Interest groups are eligible to receive up to a maximum of $200 in semester budget funding.
- All other types of student groups are eligible to receive up to a maximum of $350 in semester budget funding.
- Further funding for all groups may be requested through adhoc but should be limited to truly necessary requests.
- Extra funding (e.g. collaborations, large community events, networking, cooking, and cultural events) can still be accessed, thus allowing groups to go above this limit.
- Your semester budget must be used on the events submitted during the approval process. If you were approved for Event A and Event B, you are not permitted to spend money on Event C using your semester budget.
- Semester budget funds cannot be reallocated unless in situations where the original event is no longer possible due to unforeseen circumstances. An example that would qualify is if a speaker for a lunch talk had to cancel and is unable to reschedule. In situations like this, you must obtain approval from SCOMSA via email to distribute the allocated funds towards a replacement event.
- Groups may utilize the adhoc funding process for any new events that come up.
- Student groups may only receive $200 in semester budget funding for food, but may be allocated additional money for other purposes. Please see ‘Food’ for more information.
- Please also note that any food items purchased for non-food uses (EX: gingerbread houses or food used for demonstration purposes) may be considered to be “Supplies” funding, which would not count towards the food budget limit.
- You are REQUIRED to use all of the money allocated to your group by the end of each semester. Failure to do so can result in funding being limited for future semesters. As we have a highly limited budget, this ensures we can properly plan our spending over the course of the fiscal year.
- All items that are purchased, excluding single-use or consumable items, are property of SCOMSA and not of the student group or leader making the purchase. We expect all items to be returned to the SCOMSA Closet at the end of the academic year in good, working order. Failure to do so can result in loss of funding privileges.
- Certain purchases may be denied if SCOMSA knows of alternative sources to procure them. For example, through the SCOMSA Closet or through BMC.
- When submitting your funding request, DO NOT submit itemized expenditures as “$100 – food”. We require a true itemized list and will automatically reject funding for all events where an itemized list is not provided.
Adhoc Funding
- All guidelines under the Semester Budget section applies to this section.
- If you wish to host an event not preapproved during the Semester Budget approval process OR need additional funding for an event, you must apply for Adhoc Funding.
- Each student group is eligibile for two adhoc requests per fiscal year.
- Adhoc requests must be submitted no later than three days before the first Wednesday of every month. Adhoc requests will stop being approved after the April General Body Meeting of every academic year as SCOMSA adjourns at the conclusion of that meeting.
- You cannot exceed the $200 – Already Allocated Food Budget total limit on food funding through Adhoc Funding. See ‘Food’ section.
- The adhoc fund is limited and if it is depleted, SCOMSA will notify student leadership and close adhoc funding requests until the following fiscal year.
Large Community Event Funding
- Large Community Events are eligible to receive a total of $500. SCOMSA encourages collaboration between groups, particularly for large events that can be logistically challenging, but as these events qualify for a significant amount of funding already, no additional collaboration bonus money will be given.
- Eligible events should be large enough to necessitate the utilization of a space like Hiebert due to significant anticipated attendance.
- You MUST provide detailed plans and advertising methods when you request this funding. SCOMSA will not approve funding if you only provide ambiguous plans.
- You MUST meet with SAO and the SCOMSA Treasurer regularly throughout the planning process. We expect this to be weekly at a minimum unless otherwise approved by SAO and the Treasurer.
- You may apply for this through the semester budget or adhoc funding.
- Note that by design, meeting the requirements to access funding through this avenue is a high bar. SCOMSA is providing a significant amount of money in exchange for an event that should have a strong impact on the BUSM student community. Examples of previously successful events include Diwali, Open Mic Nite, and Culture Show.