For over 30 years, the Student Government Resource Center has worked with student governments to help them produce results for their constituents. Our consultation services can provide your student government with the resources, advice, and tools you need to win victories on the issues that matter to your student body.
Some of our areas of specialty include:
Campaign Consulting
College students face serious problems, including the high cost of college, looming budget cuts, and threats to campus safety. In order to get real results, your student government needs a real, strategic campaign. The Student Government Resource Center will work directly with you to help you research a problem, develop the key elements of your campaign, and implement your plan. For example:
- We helped ActivUs, the activist arm of Iowa State University’s Government of the Student Body, develop campaigns on student debt, tuition hikes, and sweatshop labor. ActivUs’s campaign on student debt garnered front page coverage in the Des Moines Register and helped students win a nationwide campaign to lower student loan interest rates.
- We worked with the Arizona Students’ Association to develop a statewide campaign that successfully reversed a proposed tuition hike for all public universities.
Organizational Consulting
Running a student government is a huge responsibility that includes many different facets. You need to coordinate a large, diverse group of student leaders; oversee the funding process for countless student groups; manage services and events for the campus; represent the student body in discussions with the administration; and more. We can help you figure out how to deal with some of your biggest challenges, including:
- Creating a plan for recruiting more members and developing new leaders.
- Revamping parts of your student government’s structure, such as your by-laws or funding process.
- Planning out new programs or services.
- Developing a marketing strategy to increase visibility for your organization.
State Student Association Development
State Student Associations (SSAs) are networks of student governments across a state or a university system. SSAs allow students to pool their enthusiasm, skills, and resources to make a larger impact on statewide issues like higher education funding. The Student Government Resource Center supports students and staff who work with SSAs in a variety of ways, including:
- Assisting students who are working to start a new SSA in their state. Specifically, we can provide advice and assistance on organizational structure, funding mechanisms, building support among campuses and administrators, and SSA management best practices.
- Advising SSAs on statewide campaigns and projects. We can help SSAs develop new statewide programs and campaigns, organize statewide trainings and conferences, and coordinate field programs and lobbying efforts.
- Providing training and support to SSA leadership. We provide advanced training for staff and lead students at SSAs on skills including campaign planning, overseeing staff and volunteers, and financial management.