With the support of our Clark community, we awarded 67 grants to Clark University students between January 1 2023 and December 5 2023. Many grants were awarded to students who fit more than one of following demographics:

Most grants were used for more than one purpose.

The average grant amount in 2023 was $308.90. The average amount requested was $492.35. We consistently do not have enough funds to meet the needs of our community.
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We are grateful to every single person who donated money or helped solicit donations for our fund this year. In total, we raised $15,753 this year. 23 people have set up recurring monthly donations on OCF, which are especially valuable because they provide reliable, sustaining support. 

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 Open Collective officially became our fiscal sponsor at the end of February 2023. We spent the majority of the spring adapting our processes for distributing aid to meet IRS and OCF requirements. Our accounting team grew from one person to four people, with differentiated roles, to accommodate this change. In May, several key members graduated and those of us who remained had limited capacity to fundraise in the summer. 

 To overcome these challenges, we learned to ask each other and OCF for help. We became more committed to documenting everything that happens so that the students who eventually replace us can learn from our experiences. We onboarded 9 new people, so we grew to a team of 24 and will have 12 people returning in the 2024-2025 school year. 

 We are also facing external pressure from the increased need in our community. The cost of living in Worcester has increased, and Clark administration continues to raise tuition without increasing aid to students every single year. Clark administration has also introduced new policies in an attempt to curb our efforts to partner with clubs to fundraise. We are learning to navigate increased scrutiny on our collaboration projects in a way which protects us and our allies, while still staying true to our mission and highlighting institutional failures. We are determined to continue serving our community, no matter what.

We plan on making our request form more accessible to speakers of languages other than English and continuing to expand our Non-Monetary Resource Toolkit. We aim to develop skills for power building and political education amongst students on campus. We plan to formalize a coalition of student groups to put pressure on Clark administration to address the clear needs our community has in light of the dismissal of SYC by adminstration. This will allow us to maintain long-term relationships with clubs that support us within their on-campus events. Mutual aid is a fundamental part of the infrastructure behind community care, so we want to continue developing systems, strategies and frameworks that crystalize SYC’s long-term position in our community.