Updated as of 11:04 a.m. on Sept. 17 to include video.
A cappella organization Vital Signs is scrambling to find funding for events after no longer receiving usual allocation from Elon's Student Government Association.
Aidan Coy, Vital Signs president, said the a cappella presidents were scheduled to meet with the SGA executive board on Sept. 6 to discuss this, but SGA canceled the meeting the day prior.
Coy, along with all other a capella presidents, received an email from the SGA Executive Board on May 14 stating that “the Student Government Association will no longer allocate funds to support events that require students to purchase tickets.”
Ella Kucera, SGA’s vice president of communications declined an interview, but said in an email to Elon News Network that while the SGA revises it’s financial bylaws every spring in this situation the bylaws did not change.
“After a review of the 2023-2024 events supported by SGA,” Kucera wrote. “It was discovered that some events did not align with this policy. The bylaws haven’t changed; the Finance Board is just making sure we follow them.”
According to SGA’s website, in order for an event to receive funding it has to be inclusive and open to all students, promote campus unity, and align with the mission of the university and or student organizations.
A cappella organizations use a combination of ticket sales and SGA funding in order to fund their albums, concerts and other expenses, which Coy said can cost as much as $40,000. It has been a part of SGA’s bylaws that organizations can not profit off of events that are funded by SGA. Now that SGA is reinforcing its financial bylaws, a capella will have to make a decision between selling tickets or requesting funding from SGA.
“I think it was a really tough position to put us in,” Coy said. “They revise the finance bylaws every March and we weren't invited. We weren’t let known until reading day, right before finals so to us, it felt like they were trying to subdue us over the summer, and it's really just a setback for us.”
According to Coy, the seven a cappella presidents held a five hour meeting on reading day to try and discuss this change with the SGA executive board. After the meeting between the a cappella presidents, Coy said they tried to meet with the SGA executive board to discuss the changes with little to no success.
Prior to the reinforcement of the bylaws, Coy said a cappella funds its albums using their ticket sales rather than SGA funding.
“We all use our ticket sales to pay for our albums,” Coy said. “That doesn't come out of SGA’s pocket, that's all from our ticket sales.”
In the initial email that the a cappella president’s received, SGA stated that the reason why they reinforced the bylaws was “to foster inclusivity and remove financial barriers from our student body.”
“They're not interested in talking with us,” Coy said. “We've tried to set up meetings, and we sort of just get put back in the circle where all the presidents try to get the ball rolling, something gets, sort of somewhere, and then they never get back to us.”
Kucera wrote SGA holds regular office hours in Moseley 213 and are always open to discussing concerns with any student organization, including a cappella organizations.
While the majority of a cappella’s expenses are funded by their ticket sales, a cappella organizations have previously used SGA funding. RipChord president, Duncan George said they would use SGA funding to hire Liquid Fifth, a recording and production company from Graham, to set up equipment for their concerts.
“They would give us $1,750 for Liquid Fifth to come in and mic our concerts, set up the equipment, and do the sound check with us and everything,” George said. “If we wanted to edit and master the live tracks, ripcord, for example, would have to pay out of pocket an additional $400 to 500 to get that song mastered.”
In previous years, a cappella organizations would use SGA funding for other activities, however that has declined over the years.
“When I was a first year back in 2021, SGA would fund our retreats,” Coy said. “SGA really helped us out with some decorations, sometimes a videographer or a photographer, and that was pretty much it. Then as I got older, progressed in the group, they started doing less and less. They would cut off our videographers and photographers, they would cut off our decorations, and they stopped funding our retreats and stuff like that, because they labeled us as an exclusive group.”
Unlike other student-run organizations where anyone can join, a cappella organizations conduct an audition process and then extend offers to potential members.
Now that a cappella organizations can no longer receive SGA funding if they continue to sell tickets, Coy plans on requesting funding from SGA for their albums and concerts.
“I think we're about to submit a budget request for around $6,500 to pay for our album,” Coy said. “If they're willing to pay for our album, for them to fund all of the stuff that we do as an organization, then I'm totally fine without selling tickets. But you know, if they're cutting our funding or if they're telling us you can't sell tickets, now, something's telling me they're not going to be too willing to pay groups instead of just letting them sell tickets.”
According to its bylaws and Kucera, SGA is able to fund their concerts however, SGA's bylaws do not allow for SGA to pay for expenses that directly generate potential revenue for student organizations.
“SGA can allocate funding to any eligible organization, including a cappella groups, for events that are free for students or for which revenue from ticket sales simply covers the cost of hosting the event,” Kucera wrote. “Because the bylaws do not allow SGA to pay for fundraisers or items that directly generate revenue for student organizations, funding their albums is not possible.”
Kucera stated that a cappella organizations can still sell tickets to their events, they just can not do so and receive funding from SGA.
“Groups still have the option of requesting SGA funding to cover the full cost of hosting events and making them free for students,” Kucera wrote. “Or they can make the activity a fundraiser and charge for tickets.”
George said he hopes that the acapella presidents can meet with SGA and come to an agreement about how they will proceed with funding for the future.
“I hope that there's some way that we can regain the money lost from the concerts,” George said. “If we could work with SGA to come up with a solution, that would be awesome, that's the goal.”