Many residence hall associations were created at campuses across the US in the early twentieth century.
Many RHAs are affiliated with the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH), a student-run nonprofit which coordinates communication among RHAs and hosts a national conference, and local conferences through eight other regional subsidiaries.
Some schools such as Colorado State University's RHA and National Residence Hall Honorary chapter receive a portion of funds from their housing and dining departments, allocated per student living in the halls.
RHA money is also used to finance travel arrangements and fees for attending regional and national conferences (e.g. NACURH), provide stipends or subsidized housing fees to Executives and RHA staff members, and may also be distributed to individual residence halls for hall activities.
This can cause overlap between student government's involvement in residential issues or activities, and the efforts of the RHA.
In addition, many RHAs also sponsor a school chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH), an honor society for resident students, as the national NRHH organization is an arm of NACURH.