OSPIRG Student Chapters are funded by students who have decided to use a portion of their student activities fees to help solve some of the biggest problems facing the world today. This money allows students to hire experts and organizers to work on their campuses to fight global warming, cleanup our water ways, make college affordable, and more.
How do the OSPIRG Student Chapters spend the funding they receive?
OSPIRG spends the largest portion of its money on staff. Staff like organizers to work on campuses and train students how to run coordinated campaigns on the issues they care about, while organizing the grassroots, getting media attention, and building coalitions to solve these problems; researchers and scientists who do research on problems in our community, find common-sense solutions and write reports or policy proposals; advocates who educate decision makers on what solutions students care about; and of course we use a small portion of our money on administrative costs.
It is our philosophy that the best way to use our money is whatever will create the largest amount of social change. And most often that is on staff - because staff can institutionalize real changes. Not to mention our opposition is funneling massive amounts of money into ads, lobbyists, and misinformation campaigns. The only way to combat their power is by organizing the public.
When you look at the things we've done - increase Pell Grant funding, cut student loan interest rates, protect the Arctic wildlife refuge from oil drilling, and register more than 2500 voters a year - it's pretty clear that it's money well spent. The staff we hire and the campaigns we run do take resources, and with the challenges facing Oregon students and the country over the next few years, you can be sure that our staff and students will use these resources to stand up to the special interests and win. Our clean water, our land use protections, consumer and student rights - they all rely on our ability to hire a crack team of experts and professionals to fight for students.
Besides, polluting industries spend millions of dollars each year just on campaign contributions to elected officials (that doesn't include their lobbyists, their propaganda, their campaign ads, etc.). A $2 or $3 fee every term is small change in comparison to what we're up against. That small change makes a big difference - they might spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid pollution regulations, but with the help of students here in Oregon, we are able to protect our environment and public health. Student support gives us the opportunity to make a difference at the local and national level.
Where is the money spent?
Off and on campus, but mostly it goes to wherever OSPIRG Student Chapters’ resources will make a difference on the issues that students care about. The whole point of establishing OSPIRG Student Chapters is to be able to have the resources to hire a staff of professionals - attorneys, researchers, organizers, and advocates - to work with students to fight against the special interests wherever they are trying to pollute the environment, rip off consumers, or corrupt the democratic process.
Why does OPIRG Student Chapters hire staff?
The problems that OSPIRG Student Chapters undertakes are large, often national, in scope. Staff are an important part of having an effective organization. They bring expertise to students' ideas and continuity to long term student campaigns.
Do students in each chapter decide what issues to work on?
Students decide on the campaigns that they want to work on both locally and at the statewide level. All students can bring campaign ideas to the statewide board, where students from different chapters get together, to work on campaigns across the state. The student board then approves these campaigns, and the students run them on their campus. Each semester, the student board also decides which campaign will be the priority campaign for the following semester which means they will put the most resources - materials development and staff time - into that campaign. This gives students power in that it is a statewide and often nationally coordinated campaign which will make them more effective. We also run campaigns that are specific to the area, for example a campaign to clean up the Rogue River at Southern Oregon University.
Why does OSPIRG work statewide and nationally?
The problems that Oregon faces do not only occur on campus. In order to clean up our waterways, protect our national forests or lower textbook prices our staff need to go to the decision makers all across the state and in Washington D.C. With national grassroots support as well as our staff tackling problems from Portland to Ashland, we are able to take on the special interests that create these problems and actually win for students and the public interests.
Why do you get funded with student fee money?
Students who care about solving global warming or fixing healthcare have made a decision to fund advocates with their own student fee money. It gives them power - the power to hire staff, tell those staff what issues they want to work on, and to inevitably influence the outcome on issues they care about. By pooling their resources, students can be more effective at taking on the powerful interests that will be working to oppose the good of the public on clean air, clean water, healthcare reform, global warming and more.
