Taking our cue from the X-prize, solar car races, and various other competitive ventures, we use engineering competitions as a tool to capture mindshare in academia, space enthusiast community, and the general public. If we can have even 10 universities and 100 engineering students involved with the Space Elevator project each year, we'd have left our mark on the aerospace community.
Our prize money is provided by NASA's Centennial Challenges program - a total of $4,000,000 over the next 5 years! To maximize our return and reduce our risk, we distribute the money in slowly increasing increments, as we ratchet up the difficulty level of the challenges.
http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010