Eligibility for SORC services:
The advertising services provided by the Student Organization Resource Center (SORC) are available for use by recognized student organizations and University departments. Unaffiliated businesses and individuals may purchase materials and balloons but may not use SORC advertising services. If you are interested in creating a new student organization, visit Maize Pages.
Content Guidelines and Minimum Requirements:
SORC services exist for the purpose of helping student organizations and departments promote their activities, programs, and services. Advertising materials submitted to SORC should underscore the University’s commitment to discussion and dialog for greater cultural understanding and awareness, even for ideas that may be contradictory to each other. Your advertisements are a reflection of your organization; others might disagree with your group’s beliefs or may view the content as highly objectionable.
SORC will not censor content, except as described below. Rather, it requires that advertisers accept direct accountability for the content and must agree to meet with and have a dialogue with a complainant concerning the advertisement. If a dialogue meeting is needed, SORC will provide a representative and a mediator to join in a meeting with a knowledgeable representative of the advertiser and the complainant. Please see the Manager of SORC for more details on the nature of the dialogue process. To this end, SORC will not accept advertising materials that:
- have content that violates state or federal laws or University of Michigan policies.
- promote non-university events or programs.
- promote non-University businesses. Businesses may be listed only as a sponsor of programs but may not be a primary focus of the advertisement.
- have content that violates University of Michigan identity guidelines.
- do not follow Brand policy for UM logos
- do not clearly state the full name of the sponsoring organization.
- For student organizations, your name must appear exactly as it appears in Maize Pages.
- For all groups, the name of the organization must be spelled out in its entirety (acronyms do not satisfy this requirement).
- Although an event might have multiple sponsors or contributors, the name of the organization that reserves the space and completes a contract with SORC is considered the sponsoring organization.
- The shortcode used to pay for the reservation must belong to the organization that reserved the space.
- do not clearly state the contact information for the sponsoring organization.
- Acceptable: website, phone, email, or physical address
- Welcome but do not satisfy the contact info requirement on their own: Social media, QR code
- Contact information for local businesses does not fulfill this requirement. The contact information must be for the sponsoring organization.
- do not have appropriately sized organization name and contact information.
- For Diag boards and Diag banners, the letters must be at least 2" tall.
For the Michigan Union banner, the letters must be at least 4 inches tall. NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME- For Bus signs, the letters must be at least ½” tall.
- For Digital Ads, the letters must be at least 75 pixels tall (actual height will vary by screen size).
- For Table Tents, the letters must be at least ¼” tall.
- do not meet basic construction standards set by SORC and the University of Michigan.
- arrive at SORC after the deadline. In some instances, however, materials can be placed the day after the deadline. A late fee applies. Visit this page for a complete list of SORC deadlines.
- click here for an explanation of policies on advertising for political candidates or ballot issues.