August 18, 2011 | Combined Reports - UConn Communications

Student Committee Encourages Others to Give Back

The Student Philanthropy Committee aims to build awareness of the importance of giving.

From left: Mallory Walsh ’14 (CLAS) and Victoria South ’14 (BUS), members of the Student Philanthropy Committee, on Tuition Runs Out Day, held on March 23.

From left: Mallory Walsh ’14 (CLAS) and Victoria South ’14 (BUS), members of the Student Philanthropy Committee, on Tuition Runs Out Day, held on March 23.

From left: Mallory Walsh ’14 (CLAS) and Victoria South ’14 (BUS), members of the Student Philanthropy Committee, on Tuition Runs Out Day, held on March 23.
From left: Mallory Walsh ’14 (CLAS) and Victoria South ’14 (BUS), members of the Student Philanthropy Committee, on Tuition Runs Out Day, held on March 23.

For many years, UConn student giving was restricted to the senior class gift, when graduating students first learned about the importance of giving back to UConn in the final months of their college careers.

“We were talking to students one semester before they were leaving UConn,” says Rachel Marshall, the assistant director of Annual Giving at the UConn Foundation. “The problem there is that students would never see the fruits of their giving; they would leave campus and miss the opportunity to fully appreciate the impact of their personal investment in the University.”

In the fall of 2010, Marshall and others in the Office of Annual Giving created the Student Philanthropy Committee (SPC) to build awareness of and encourage student giving. Dozens of students signed up to be a part of the committee, and more than 25 participated regularly in hosting the numerous events the committee sponsored throughout the year.

“Up until recently, I had not known the importance of student giving,” says Taren Sarantos ’11 (CLAS), an SPC member. “After my experiences with the Student Philanthropy Committee, I am now well aware of it and eager to share it with my peers.”

Bryon Bunda ’14 (CLAS) attended Phillips Exeter Academy, a New Hampshire boarding school where philanthropy was part of the culture. “The SPC is my own personal challenge,” he says. “This is my first year at UConn, and this is the SPC’s first year. I am excited to get involved with it early on and watch it grow as I grow.”

SPC coordinated two significant events this year meant to teach the importance of private giving: Philanthropy Day in the fall, and Tuition Runs Out Day in the spring. Booths were set up in the Student Union and on Fairfield Way, where committee members encouraged students to give back to UConn in any area that mattered to them most. They also partnered with the UConn Alumni Association in speaking to freshmen through the Freshman Experience program about the importance of student and alumni giving and involvement.

Their efforts were bolstered by David Barton ’61 (BUS), a member of the UConn Alumni Association and a UConn donor,  who issued a challenge to all UConn students: Give $5 or more to an area of particular interest to them, and he would match each gift dollar for dollar up to a total of $25,000. “Students need to understand the economics of education—that tuition pays for about one-third, the state pays another third, and philanthropy and grants pay the rest,” Barton says. “In fact, the day they start, they are recipients of philanthropy from people who have gone before them.”

The students responded enthusiastically. Some gave a dollar, others gave $100, and the effort surpassed Barton’s challenge, raising nearly $35,000 for a variety of programs and organizations. The challenge encouraged students to give to a fund of their choice, whether it be the Women’s Center or the English Department. “Students were excited to give to something that was important to them,” Marshall says.