Questions? Come by our office hours:

For January-April

1pm-2pm every Monday

2pm-3pm every Thursday

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Q: How much funding do you have to distribute?

The Sustainability Projects Fund receives $2.25 from every student at UBC each year, giving us approximately $96,000 for 2011-2012. This is only the start however as our community partners have pitched in to give the Sustainability Projects fund an even bigger impact! The UBC office of Campus and Community Planning has contributed $20,000 to help promote behavior change on campus and the University Neighborhoods Association has contributed $5,000 to help promote sustainability across the campus community. This brings the total amount of funding available to over $120,000. You can apply to specifically receive funding through our UNA/UBC partnerships to enhance your project’s focus and priority.

 

Q: Will we fund travel?

The Sustainability Projects Fund Committee will consider funding travel related to your projects, whether that is to a conference or other event related to work that you do towards improving sustainability on the UBC campus. However, we’ll need a very strong rationale as to why this travel is integral to your project. We don’t want to use student money allocated towards sustainability to fund a plane flight.

Q: Will we fund student wages?

Yes, we will consider finding a way to ensure success of a project by allowing students to obtain compensation for their dedication through a small honorarium. A sustainability fund project is not a means to substitute for employment and funding allocated for wages must be consistent with best practices and show significant cost savings over hiring an external entity for similar work. For some projects, specifically those that require web or various types of programming, a project may entirely reside on the number of hours students can use towards development, in those cases the majority of a project may be towards a student honorarium.

Q: When can I submit my proposal?

We evaluate proposals on a monthly basis, however if you are applying in the medium or large category you will need to plan more in advance. For a medium proposal, you will need to submit a letter of intent one month in advance. For a large proposal, you will need to submit your letter of intent and then have your proposal ready by the date we post on our website. For 2011, we’ll be reviewing large proposals at the end of November. You must submit your proposal or letter of intent 7 days before our next meeting for it to be considered, otherwise it will be reviewed the following month.

Q: How do we decide on funding for projects? 

The AMS Sustainability Projects Fund Committee meets once a month and reviews all proposals before the meeting using an evaluation form similar to this one. All decisions of the committee are made on a consensus basis. To minimize conflicts of interest, the AMS Sustainability Projects fund committee fully declare any connections they have to any project and all meetings are open to the public.