As the Financial Manager of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO), I am constantly tasked with securing, retrieving, and delivering financial information to the rest of the board. My role requires me to always be accountable for our funds and identify ways to secure more funding. When planning new events every month, I must make quick and accurate judgments on the feasibility of these events based on our current financial status.
This spring semester was particularly intense compared to the previous fall, as our student group had exhausted most of our stable funding sources for Latin American Heritage Month (LAM) in October. Consequently, I was responsible for finding different avenues for funding to continue our community events throughout the remainder of the year.
While I reached out to our usual sources from the fall semester—the Resource Center and the Latin American Studies Department—they informed me that we had already used up our allocated budget from each department. With our funding limited to the Student Budget Committee, I had to make reasonings and judgments based on our remaining funds and the likelihood of securing additional resources.
Given the quantitative data at hand, I analyzed our financial records and projected expenses to determine the feasibility of our planned events. I concluded that without additional funding, we could not support the larger-scale events we had initially planned for the end of the spring semester. I was confident of this conclusion as it was based on clear financial constraints and past expenditure patterns.
Communicating this news to our group leaders, I advised them to reconsider some of the larger-scale events and proposed alternative, budget-friendly solutions. Although it was disappointing, especially since many events were targeted toward the graduating seniors, it was an unavoidable outcome due to our limited resources. Our leaders communicated this information to the rest of the board members, and together we developed more relaxed and cost-effective alternatives. This adjustment ended up working out for the better, as it created a more casual and comfortable atmosphere for our community to bond closer.
This experience taught me the importance of thorough financial planning and the need to make informed judgments based on the information available at hand. It also made me appreciate our organization’s adaptability and collaborative attitude when facing financial challenges. To prevent similar issues in the future, I made notes for next year’s budget and drafted a proposed budget plan to avoid encountering the same problem in the following academic year. It was an unprecedented challenge, but I effectively communicated urgent financial information to our group leaders and our group was able to work around the challenge. Needless to say, I look forward to hosting future events next year for the Latin American student community on campus with a renewed budget.
