Victory

Earlier last month I blogged about a Historic Day For AHA, in which a governing board ruled that AHA was worthy to receive a special type of student organization funding, reserved only for groups providing a "direct service" to the students of UW-Madison. (Read the above link for more details.) That post ended with a cliffhanger: while AHA was officially deemed eligible to receive funding, we would have to wait for a subsequent budget hearing to determine precisely how much money that would be.  That hearing was tonight, hold on to your ass...

In AHA's 2013 - 2014 Budget includes:

• $200  for a "Kickoff Bash" pizza party.

• $300  to acquire books for our own "Freethought Library."

• $700  for a video camera to document all of our events on YouTube.

• $1,300  to send our officers to the annual SSA Leadership Conference.

• $1,350  for a computer and printer to furnish our new office space.

• $2,780  to enrich the university with our "Freethought Speakers Series."

• $5,000  on printing thousands of AHA flyers to be posted across the campus.

• $6,500  on advertising AHA's events and services in the student newspapers.

• $16,650  to fund our amazing FREE conference, the Freethought Festival.

And,

Are you ready for this?

• $30,000 for 8 paid staff positions to be filled by the AHA officers.

Plus a handful of other things, for a grand total of about $69,000.

*(Updated 11/15/12  to account for a few budget modifications made at an additional hearing)*

If you thought our 2011 Best Cooperation Award or our 2012 Best Educator & Best Educational Event Awards were impressive, imagine what we will achieve in the future with budgets of this magnitude.  Here at AHA, we take pride in constantly pushing the envelope of what secular student groups can accomplish. With this record-breaking budget, we have solidified our place as the biggest, best organized, and most successful atheist student group in history.
And we're just getting started.