Union Consulting Group offers budgeting advice

In a brief meeting Tuesday, Duke University Union discussed plans to promote awareness of services offered by the Union Consulting Group.

DUU decided to fund a brochure to advertise the UCG, a group created last year by current President Zach Perret, a senior, to improve programming and financial management among student groups. The group plans to work with the Student Organization Finance Committee to distribute the brochures, Vice President of External Affairs Will Benesh, a junior, said in an interview.

“We’re doing an outreach advertising campaign to make our presence more known to group leaders so that they will come to us,” Perret said after the meeting.

Although UCG began as an event-planning group, it is evolving into a general consulting group for student organizations, Chief Financial Officer Annie Kozak, a junior, said in an interview. Kozak said UCG is expanding its services to consult student groups about infrastructure and administration, but still has little visibility on campus.

“We’ve been getting some requests... it’s just that up until now, we’ve just been relying on word of mouth,” Benesh said.

SOFC grants money to student organizations, but sometimes has difficulty assessing whether these organizations are efficiently budgeting because some of the groups are unprepared to estimate expenses, Benesh said. By working with UCG, SOFC will be able to give the brochure to student groups when they request funding so they can use UCG’s services.

In other business:

The Duke Coffeehouse will host the Troika Music Festival Thursday through Saturday. The festival is an annual cultural showcase of bands from the Triangle area. Thursday night’s performances will be free for all Duke students.