Budget Committee Analysis of Resolution 1502B
Overall, the committee was highly dubious of the effectiveness of this sizeable expense without much more clarity surrounding statements made in the resolution as well as the overall business model of The Berkeley Graduate (TBG). However, it did not have any reservations about the $800 expense for the Social Media Manager given that this was a budgeting issue from last year.
The following items synthesize the many questions that the committee had about the resolution:
1. On the topic of Specific Details on the Distribution of Site Visits:
While the committee recognized that 3000 visitors per month was an impressive number, it questioned what portion of this number was actually due to engaged visitors. In other words, we were interested in what the distribution was over people skimming articles, reading articles, short hits, substantial interactions, and potential bot visits. In the least, we were interested in being able to tell the difference between “random hits” and engaged individuals.
Moreover, we were interested in seeing an audience history chart to monitor growth since the re-founding of TBG. This was based on the observation that the statistic of 311.5% growth was quite vague without a basis for comparison.
Lastly, since we recently expanded the TBG budget substantially to increase their social media presence we were interested in comparing the number of Facebook page visitors versus that of their website’s. In relation to part 4, we are curious as to what the expected outcome of revamping the website is and how this is related to their long-term goals.
2. On the topic of the Estimated Cost of the New Website:
We wanted more information about how they arrived at the cost estimate of nearly $15,000.
3. On the topic of the Impact to the Graduate Student Population:
This topic is related to parts 1 and 4 but specifically asks how their data is related to graduate students and what they envision their impact on graduate students to be. We were interested in estimates of how many of the roughly 10,000 graduate students were included in the 3,000 visitors per month statistic. As well estimating how many grad students are aware of their current operations (via social media, the website, or word of mouth).
4.On the topic of what TBG considered their long-term goals, its impact on the graduate student body, and how their business model aligned with these:
As we concluded our discussion, it was clear TBG needed to clarify what their future plans were as well as how they expected to achieve them. Is the TBG a reasonably sized graduate student publication in the “by grad students for grad students” kind of sense? Or does it have alternative aspirations to expand in a scope similar to the Daily Cal or other newspapers with a sizable online presence? If the case is the latter, then discussions need to start on the sources of revenues that fund TBG (such as advertisements) and the limitations that the GA has in funding a full-scale online newspaper without any sources of revenues. As the topic title suggests, the committee would like more clarity surrounding their long-term goals, how these goals are related to graduate students, and how their business model aligns the aforementioned.
In summary, the Budget Committee recommends that:
- The $800 expense for the Social Media Manager be approved, and
- The GA refrain from fundingthe approximately $15,000 website update until the aforementioned questions are fully answered.