Funding for graduate organizations is handled by the Graduate Student Government, whose funding policies and guidelines are outlined on their website. 

• The GSG VP of Finance for FY 2025–2026 is Sushritha Bharadwaj Deshakulkarni Srikantha. She is your best point of contact for any GSG funding-related queries. CSI does not have direct control over GSG finances. Their email is gsgfinance@northeastern.edu.
• The Student Activities Business Office (SABO) is the best point of contact for all queries related to university monetary policies, depositing/receiving money, transferring money between accounts, etc.
• Familiarize yourself with GSG’s funding policies and what they expect from you in order to secure money.
• Note the timelines for securing funding. Plan accordingly with regards to event planning to ensure that you’re following CSI/broader university deadlines.

To submit a funding request to the GSG, follow the Engage form link on the GSG funding page.

Planning events and programs as a graduate or professional student can be daunting. We’re here to help get you started! Below is a survey of the various components that often go into event planning for graduate and professional students. For a chronological list of everything required to execute an event, please see this page. Be sure to review all of CSI’s and Northeastern University’s policies during event preparation.

Kinds of Events

Looking for event ideas? Here are some kinds of events that graduate student organizations often host for their members:

• Panels: Panels are an excellent way to highlight speakers and put them in conversation with one another as well as with the audience. Current graduate students, faculty, staff, industry professionals, and alumni are frequently panelists.
• Social Mixers: All events should, in theory, offer the chance to socialize in some capacity. However, simply offering free food, drinks, and music (at appropriate sound levels) is an excellent, cost-effective, easy way to create community among your members.
• Workshops: Skill-building workshops for professional development, how to handle imposter syndrome, public speaking, leadership, and other relevant topics are always welcome.
• Arts & Crafts: It’s important to give your body and mind time to recharge from the stress of academics, co-ops, and other career-related pursuits. Crafting activities are a great way to build community in a relaxing environment which encourages active participation. What’s more, they often give participants something to take home!
• Research: It’s important to give students the opportunity to present their research in settings other than formal conferences or class sessions. Peer review is one of the best, more direct feedback methods.
• Tabletop Games: Tabletop board games, role-playing games, and card games are an excellent way to connect with your peers in a casual setting. Explore the NU Library’s free board game collection or email nucsi@northeastern.edu to access ours.
• Conferences: While the workload is considerable, the payoff is worth it: conferences are a landmark event for organizations who host them each year. They have the potential to bring together hundreds of students, faculty, and staff to share research, network with industry professionals, and explore career paths.

Things to Consider:

Events Management and Facilities

• In general, plan to have all of your setup needs submitted no later than 15 days before your event for indoor spaces, or to CSI 21 days before your event for outdoor spaces. The sooner you submit them, the more opportunities that you have for adjustments or clarifications to ensure that you have the event that you want.
• Events Management oversees major event spaces in the Curry Student Center, including the Indoor Quad + Pit, West Mezzanine, Ground Floor, Ballroom, and Blackman Auditorium. They handle setup and staffing needs for all events taking place in these spaces. Their form must be submitted no later than 15 days prior to your event date. Plan ahead when it comes to setup!
• CSI needs to communicate all setup requirements for outdoor events taking place on Centennial Common or any of the quads to facilities with the Engage Event Request submission, which means having all of your setup needs in place no later than 21 days before your outdoor event to incorporate into your submission to CSI.

Attendance

• Consider in advance how you will track attendance and ensure that you know the capacity limits for your event space in advance. If you track who specifically comes to your events, you can survey them afterwards for feedback, too, in order to improve your events over time.
• Consider utilizing Engage’s RSVP system or Google forms to manage attendees.
• Any and all ticketed events in spaces overseen by Events Management (typically the Curry Student Center, and a few others) must use Northeastern’s ticketing platform. Free tickets will not incur a charge to your student organization. Submit all the ticketing information with your Engage event request. 

Purchases and Storage

• Be sure to submit all purchasing requests with your event request and plan them out well in advance to give CSI staff an appropriate amount of time to order your items. Purchase requests that come after an event has been submitted and approved are unlikely to be accommodated. In those instances, you’ll likely be asked to use the reimbursement process.
• You must have space to store your items before and after an event, excluding faculty/staff offices.

Food

• Be sure to survey dietary restrictions of your attendees in advance. You might consider asking for food preferences as well, for smaller events.
• Food vendors are strictly prohibited from serving food on-campus and helping distribute it unless they are contracted. 
• When ordering through CSI, you must give CSI the following info:
  • Name of the restaurant.
  • Point of contact name, email, phone number.
  • Delivery time, date, and address.
  • The exact items, including size and quantity (i.e., not just “10 pizzas”). The more information the better.

Off-Campus Speakers

• Unpaid: You must submit an Honorary Speaker Agreement in advance of your event taking place.
• Paid: You must submit a contract through the standard contracting process, adhering to all deadlines set by the Office of the General Counsel and CSI.
• Travel: Be sure to give your speaker all the information they need to travel to campus, including how to access the building where your event is taking place. It’s good practice to greet the speaker upon their arrival to campus and walk them over.
• Parking: If your speaker will require parking, be sure to submit a parking pass purchase request to CSI as part of your event submission. Note that parking passes are only sold in sets of 5 for $30/ea ($150 total).

• Post-event meal: For smaller events, you might consider inviting your speaker and some students and/or professors out to dinner afterwards. Be sure to get RSVPs in advance of the event for the meal afterwards. This meal would need to be reimbursed if you’ll be using funds from your Cash or Budget Index because you’d need to pay in the restaurant.