Executive Report

Letter from the Director

2010-2011

orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam laoreet eleifend aliquet. Vivamus erat sem, semper eget vulputate quis, ultrices sit amet justo. Curabitur nec tellus justo, mattis auctor nibh. Aliquam convallis blandit leo id fringilla. Quisque quis erat eget arcu feugiat vehicula. Cras congue, eros at fringilla pharetra, dolor velit tincidunt quam, sit amet vulputate velit arcu nec nunc. Quisque sit amet ante dui. Nam vel felis urna. Pellentesque eleifend dui id nisi gravida egestas. Sed id velit est. Nullam in pretium ligula. Pwellentesque urna ligula, aliquam lobortis bibendum ac, lacinia sed sem. Vestibulum sodales rhoncus sapien et varius. Nunc a aliquam quam. Curabitur tempus, odio quis gravida sollicitudin, ipsum erat dictum purus, ac fermentum purus ante sed tortor. Sed nisi metus, imperdiet nec ullamcorper a, imperdiet bibendum arcu. Quisque neque dolor, tincidunt nec rhoncus nec, ultricies a felis. Aliquam sit amet orci ipsum. Duis vulputate, libero sed facilisis ultrices, arcu lectus consequat elit, ut laoreet enim tellus vel leo. Nulla turpis tortor, iaculis ut fringilla vitae, consequat vitae nisl. Mauris pulvinar, velit sit amet blandit egestas, nunc tellus sodales felis, vitae semper velit ipsum sed ante. Maecenas ac justo eu velit consectetur ultrices ac vel quam. Morbi iaculis, turpis non vulputate pulvinar, nisl leo euismod leo, nec dictum ipsum orci vitae libero. Quisque sit amet ante dui. Nam vel felis urna. Pellentesque eleifend dui id nisi gravida egestas. Sed id velit est. Nullam in pretium ligula. Pwellentesque urna ligula, aliquam lobortis bibendum ac, lacinia sed sem. Vestibulum sodales rhoncus sapien et varius. Sincerely, Karen Showalter

Board of Directors
Seth Green | Founder & Board Chair Lynne Steurle Schofield| Vice Chair Patricia Lanagan| Treasurer Sarah Bush | Secretary Veronica Canton Eric Gardner Tim Ruckh Zeeshan Suhail David Devlin-Foltz Mariam Asmar Robert T. Coonrod

Advisory Board
Giulia McPherson Andrew Portocarrero Saulo Araujo Noel Ortega Jill Feldstein Jennifer Redner Neil Watkins Abigail Collazo Lorelei Kelly

Student Advisory Team

Charlie Harris Erik Ford Jared MacDonald Joel Organista Shradda Patel Maritza Adonis

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About AIDemocracy
ur vision is that every young person in the United States exercises their power to bring about a peaceful, healthy, just and sustainable world.

Last Year
Fall 2010

events last fall

71 campus

The Story
AIDemocracy was founded by a group of American students studying abroad just after the September 11 attacks who were wary of being overseas so soon after the tragedy. To their surprise, they were met with intense sympathy and solidarity from people from around the world. For them, the tragedy seemed to reveal the possibility for a global community of shared values. But when these young Americans came back to the US, they were often greeted with questions about why people around the world hated America and our values. The students realized that the picture of the rest of the world that Americans were seeing in the media was very different from the experience of the world that they were living in abroad. Americans did not have the chance to see the moderates around the world or the global partners that the US could work with to overcome common threats such as climate change, terrorism and disease. These students set up Americans for Informed Democracy to bring the world home to Americans and to showcase the opportunities for the US to play a more collaborative role in the world. They began hosting town hall forums and videoconferences to bring the stories of the world that they saw and experienced to their peers and the broader public. Based on their own experiences abroad, they believed that if Americans had new ways to connect with the rest of the world, they would see new opportunities for the US to work with other countries to solve global issues.

Road to Zero Tour We spoke with more than 2,000 students in three states, getting hundreds of students to write to their senators demanding an end to nuclear weapons and calling for a nuclear-free world. Innovators for a Sustainable World Our staff completed the final phase of the program in the fall, which trained eight student leaders to talk with their peers about sexual and reproductive health, produce videos inspiring their peers to take action and visit policymakers to demand more funding for the issue. Millennium Development Goal Champions AIDemocracy recruited eight MDG Champions who attended the Millennium Campus Network Summit in New York and organized follow-up events on their campuses to discuss achievement of the MDGs by 2015. Advocacy Our organization completed in-depth work around the ratification of the New START treaty, the creation of the Global Climate Fund, US foreign assistance reform and the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010. Revamping Communications As part our strategic planning process for the organization, we established better systems for the network to communicate, share resources and provide feedback. Specific accomplishments included building a new website and ramping up our use of social media.

Spring 2011
One Planet Day Led by students at Western Kentucky University (WKU), One Planet Day encouraged students to make a concrete pledge to fight climate change. More than 4,600 people pledged to live a more sustainable life. World Malaria Day In April, 15 universities led events sponsored by AIDemocracy around World Malaria Day. Students showed movies, raised money for mosquito nets and signed petitions to help the 200 million people suffering from malaria.

100 blog
posts in 2011

Over

Stop Gambling Green on Grain As prices on essential food items are rapidly increasing due to speculation on food commodities,this initiative focused on making commodities such as grain affordable. As part of the campaign, students reached out to their Congressmen in an effort to battle food commodity speculation and rising food prices.

US Foreign Aid In February, AIDemocracy led a campaign to oppose the proposed 19 percent cuts on federal spending on international affairs. An act that would cripple efforts for global development, students sent a postcard from a developing country to their Congressman explaining why that country needed foreign aid. Fair Trade Conference More than 150 students gathered at WKU to promote more ethical and humane labor and trade practices at a conference set up by AIDemocracy student leaders. The conference included workshops from Fair Trade USA and Divine Chocolate, among other organizations, centered on making your school a fair trade university.

Who We Serve
Our network is composed of young people in the US concerned about our individual and collective roles in the world. We all believe that we should act responsibly and collaboratively to solve our greatest challenges and that we, as students, have the power to build a better world. The majority of our more than 50,000 members are college or university students. Our members also include high school students, graduate students, recent graduates, foreign students, professors and university staff. As a non-partisan organization, we encourage students to understand and take action on issues in ways that speak to them. As long as they are thinking about what their and our role in the world should be, were happy--our goal is to simply facilitate that conversation.

Student Activists Guide to the Galaxy In February, we led the Student Activists Guide to the Galaxy at George Washington University, an event that featured presen- this year tations and workshops on issue advocacy from the National Security Network, MerciCorp, the Sierra Club and others. The conference gave students a background on different advocacy strategies and allowed the student leaders to put their new skills to use by lobbying on Capitol Hill! Fatimas Story AIDemocracy helped members at the University of Pittsburgh launch their own chapter with an ambitious inaugural event. Pitts first AIDemocracy event focused on global health, and was centered on a fictional character named Fatima who struggled with the health problems discused at the conference. Speakers from the Sierra Club, Partners In Health and AIDemocracy student leaders from other campuses all spoke at the conference.

17 webinars

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Looking Forward
A New Approach
This summer AIDemocracy began implementing a new network structure that puts even greater control of the organization into the hands of students. This new network approach is centered on the four issues AIDemocracy will focus on this year--Food Security, Sex and Justice, Climate Change and Security. The campaign team is composed of students and young people from across the country who have experience with and a true understanding of these issues. Each campaign team has a campaign organizer, campaign coordinator, communications guru and issue analyst, together forming the foundation of all of AIDemocracys issue work. The campaign teams will be in close contact with the AIDemocracy staff, but this approach to our issue work allows them to take a more direct and influential role in the organizations work. In addition to these changes in network structure, AIDemocracy moved out of the office and went virtual in August. As the organization puts more power into the hands of students, a virtual office seemed like the appropriate step in establishing a truly student-run organization.

Financials

Be2021
In May, AIDemocracy launched launched the Be2021 campaign, a program designed to inspire and empower young people to create a better world by the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Centered on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this September, students taking part in the Be2021 campaign are encouraged to declare a vision for what they believe the world and themselves should look like a decade from now. Young people are encouraged to declare their visions online at www.be2021.org/declare, and the AIDemocracy staff has been hitting the streets to gather more visions in person. As part of the campaign, AIDemocracy is launching a national youth summit that will be held in Washington D.C. this winter, a place where young people can connect and share their unique ideas and goals for the future. In addition to the youth summit, the organization is planning more than 100 Be2021-based campus events at schools including the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Georgia. A third component of the campaign is an art contest called Create2021. Students and are encouraged send in any form of artfrom film to paintingsthat demonstrates their vision of the world in 2021. Submissions can be sent in online at http://www.be2021.org/create/. To help spread the campaigns message and organize the campaign, AIDemocracy hired the Be2021 Dream Team. This group of talented students will arrange campus events, blog for the campaign and reach out to other student activists and the media to foster the growth and success of the Be2021 campaign. If you are interested in learning more about the campaign, hosting an event on your campus or publishing a story about Be2021, please contact Patrick McDermott at patrick@aidemocracy.org. To find out more, you can always visit www.Be2021.org

Breakdown
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam massa justo, ullamcorper in interdum at, vehicula in erat. Suspendisse vitae odio et felis condimentum commodo. Sed a diam at nunc posuere fringilla non nec orci. Vestibulum lacinia metus eu purus tincidunt quis ornare neque lobortis. Nullam ac lacus vestibulum justo varius imperdiet. Duis mauris mi, dapibus id gravida a, accumsan in felis. Phasellus sit amet libero non ante scelerisque aliquam. In rhoncus bibendum nunc, nec posuere augue auctor ac. Donec nunc lectus, ultricies sit amet suscipit ac, aliquam sed ipsum. Pellentesque id nunc vitae eros gravida suscipit vel at urna. Nullam commodo, est in mattis consectetur, dolor orci faucibus sapien, quis tincidunt neque nulla id odio. Quisque vitae leo leo, ut fringilla quam. Aenean vestibulum, dui quis tempus iaculis, erat ligula pellentesque purus, quis convallis tellus ipsum ac neque. Morbi convallis ornare pulvinar. Vivamus vel felis ante. Phasellus eget lacus vitae ligula suscipit pulvinar. Morbi at enim lectus. Fusce consectetur aliquet turpis quis convallis. Curabitur id lorem id libero viverra sagittis. Praesent erat sem, rutrum eu fringilla et, lobortis in felis. Curabitur hendrerit diam sed massa mollis pharetra porta lacus posuere. Ut condimentum, est sed venenatis ornare, urna nibh tempor risus, eget tincidunt nisi justo ut est. Vestibulum fringilla congue nulla, et imperdiet augue convallis sit amet. Fusce nisi massa, mollis nec porttitor sed, molestie sit amet erat. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. In rhoncus, mauris volutpat aliquam vulputate, urna odio sodales diam, at porttitor nisl massa sit amet elit. Nulla quis placerat erat. Nunc velit ante, lobortis at aliquet vel, rhoncus nec nisl. Praesent pretium erat non sapien congue a imperdiet orci tempus. Sed sagittis, dolor vitae elementum hendrerit, lectus lectus dictum lectus, a pharetra lacus felis sed risus.

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More Info
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