The Student Philanthropy Front has been awarded $5,000 as the recipient of the first Sillerman Prize for Innovations in Philanthropy sponsored by the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy, according to Director of Capacity Building at the Sillerman Center Claudia Jacobs. The runner-up, Give!, was awarded $1,500.A panel of judges heard presentations Thursday morning from the two finalists. According to the Sillerman Center's Web site, the prize would be given to a "student led team(s) that can articulate a plan to build a culture of giving on college campuses."

Entrants into the competition were asked to create new and innovative ways to "increase philanthropy amongst college students and/or create innovative structures in which to accomplish this," according to the center's Web site. Applicants were required to submit a written proposal and make a public presentation.

Jacobs said of the Sillerman Center's mission, "It is important to spread philanthropic values on campuses because of the age group on campuses, adults who are developing their values and choosing how they will be civically engaged."

According to the presentation given by the Phront team, which consisted of Charles Francis (GRAD), Yuki Hasegawa (GRAD), Robin Lichtenstein '11 and Julian Olidort '11, their program will build on the existing model of the Phront at Brandeis. Olidort started the Phront as a club last year. According to the club's Web site on myBrandeis, the Phront "helps raise funds from the community and donates to a cause per semester elected from the students." Olidort described the Phront as Brandeis "latching on to a service project" or a student who already has a service project and brings funding to the "doorstep of fellow students."

The Phront at Brandeis uses several different methods to raise funds, including dormstorming and fundraising events, and it then allocates the money to a cause selected by students.

The team hopes to expand the Phront idea regionally and then nationally in an effort to "raise cause awareness and build habits of giving on campus through an annual leadership training conference."

During his team's presentation, Olidort said that the point of innovation in expanding the Phront, first regionally and then nationally, is that by doing so they will be able to "build the trajectory of a giver by taking a budding philanthropist from precollege and tracking their growth all the way through into the professional field."

Eventually, once relationships with other schools have been established, the Phront's efforts would culminate in an annual leadership conference, which would include high school, college and professional participants and would focus on developing a "social justice mission" and "promoting and evaluating campus philanthropy," according to the presentation.

Francis said, "I think that a lot of people from our generation, even people younger than me, really more than anything they want to be involved with something. They want to be a part of it. There is a real social experience to it, and I think the Phront does that really well. And then, once giving starts to become what you do, you become more aware of other causes and want to give more in the future."

Francis said that the first step in the proposal would be to reach out to other schools who might be interested in being part of the Phront and identifying what student structures and philanthropy organizations already exist.

According to the presentation by Andrea Shaye (GRAD), Masoud Juya (GRAD), Elizabeth Wohlers (GRAD) and Beth Wolfson '75, Give! is a proposed program that aims to use existing philanthropic and community service structures on college campuses, such as Brandeis' community involvement fair, as well as social media to teach philanthropic values to students beginning in their first year of college.

Shaye said that in the process of creating Give! the focus was on "how to bridge community service into that next step of philanthropy and . how can we work with existing structures but really build something new into it."

She said that the Give! team hoped to get first-years excited and engaged in philanthropy, that the focus every year would be the first-year class and that members who were committed could continue for their entire college career and into later life. She added that she hopes the culture of giving created by Give! would eventually spread to other clubs and organizations on campus.