Student groups will experience a streamlined process for receiving funding as part of Student Union’s planned overhaul of its financial system, set to enter preliminary stages as soon as fall 2020.

Emergency Support Team, Campus Y, Uncle Joe’s Peer Counseling and Habitat for Humanity have all circulated petitions for block funding from SU for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Each of the groups petitioning—Uncle Joe’s, Emergency Support Team (EST), Lucidity, Campus Y, Bear Discounts and WUnderground—must receive 1,071 signatures, fifteen percent of the student body, by Feb. 22. Then, their budget is voted on by the student body in the SU spring election. If it passes with a two-thirds student vote, their petition is funded.

We are writing on behalf of our student groups asking you all to please understand what it means to sign a block funding petition.

An amendment to streamline the Student Union constitution passed in a special election Friday, while a proposed amendment to reduce the number of signatures required for a student group to get on the ballot for block funding failed.

I implore students to turn out in this election. For we the students must vote down the fundamentally anti-democratic block-funding amendment.

In advance of Student Union’s general budget session, four student groups have chosen to apply for block funding: Habitat for Humanity, Campus Y, Uncle Joe’s Peer Counseling and Emergency Support Team.

After a successful online petition campaign, Washington University’s sexual assault and rape hotline only needs a two-thirds majority of student votes in the upcoming Student Union elections in order to receive block funding.

Election Day took on extra meaning for Washington University students this Tuesday as polls opened for Student Union Treasury, Senate, block funding and various constitutional amendments.

[media-credit id=3223 align="alignleft" width="300"][/media-credit] In last week’s Senate elections, Campus Y, Emergency Support Team (EST) and Uncle Joe’s received block funding for their budget proposals, while the Student Sustainability Fund (SSF) did not. In a 1,082-574 vote, the SSF failed to receive the two-thirds majority necessary to secure block funding.