Overview and Eligibility

One of the goals of BGSO is to encourage students in the Division of Medical Sciences to pursue extracurricular activities that complement the graduate education being received in the laboratory. Therefore, BGSO uses part of its budget to support DMS students that want to create clubs or organizations that develop students' academic interests, whether scientific or otherwise, and foster a sense of community among the different graduate programs within DMS.

Application Guidelines

All DMS students are eligible to apply for funding. BGSO issues a call for applications for funding in the fall of each year. Following the call for funding, requests can be emailed to BGSO at bgso@hms.harvard.edu. Please include a description of the organization to be formed, a proposed budget with itemized expenses (including expected dates of expenses), and a list of other sources of funding for which the organization/group of students has applied. In addition, please specify if your organization/group has received funding previously and is therefore requesting renewal.

Organizations are allowed to spontaneously request funding from BGSO during the academic year after the completion of the fall fund allocation. Applications will be considered in light of the available remaining resources.

Requirements for Funded Groups

In line with Article 5 of the BGSO constitution and by laws, to be eligible for DMS funding exclusively, an organization must be run by DMS students. Furthermore, membership to such an organization must be limited to students enrolled in DMS. An organization with members outside of DMS must receive funding from sources in addition to BGSO to remain eligible for DMS funding.

Student groups funded by BGSO must be open to all DMS students and must advertise through the BGSO list server both their yearly plan of activities and their major events. Additionally, each organization is required to send at least one representative to every BGSO meeting.

Allocation of Available Funding

BGSO has limited resources to fund external activities and usually not all of the funding applications received can be funded. Applications are evaluated by BGSO executive members and accepted or rejected considering both the quality of the funding application, the relevance of the proposed activities to the achievement of BGSO goals, how likely the organization is to actually use the requested money and reach the proposed goals, and the story of the organization in its relationship with BGSO. While both academic and non academic activities are funded, available resources are allocated preferentially to academic activities. BGSO does not fund the purchase of wine or liquor.

All submitted funding applications will receive a confirmation of receipt and, within 15 business days, a communication of full acceptance/partial acceptance/ rejection signed by the BGSO president or the BGSO treasurer. When applying for BGSO funding, please consider that funding allocated to each organization is usually on the order of $500 or less.

Use of Assigned Funding

Organizations for which funding has been allocated shall submit receipts to the Financial Office of the Division of Medical Sciences for reimbursement. The organizations will be reimbursed by the office following current Harvard reimbursement regulations.

All receipts must be submitted by the date indicated in the funding application and in any case by the month of June. BGSO reserves the right to verify the use of unclaimed allocated funding. If an organization delays the use of allocated funding and does not give proof of having a detailed plan to actually use the allocated resources by the end of the fiscal year (June), BGSO reserves the right to withdraw the allocation of funding and use the collected resources for other purposes.