June 30, 2011

ARI's Educational Programs—Results for 2010-11

We would like to share with you the following message to donors from Yaron Brook.

Dear Contributor:

I am very pleased to report that our Free Books to Teachers Program and our annual Essay Contests Program have completed another very successful year!

Free Books

As of today, we have received requests from educators for more than 240,000 free copies of Anthem, We the Living, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Moreover, there is a backlog of requests that we are working through right now; and as a result, we project that by the end of summer we will actually exceed 275,000 books for this cycle.

Adding these requests to the total number of books already shipped to classrooms in previous years, we have achieved the following cumulative program results since 2003:

• Nearly two million copies of the novels have been sent to teachers and students.
• More than 40,000 teachers have participated in the program since its inception.
• The novels have been taught in an estimated 60,000 high school classrooms.
• Finally, given the fact that the novels are reused in subsequent years, we now estimate that more than five million students have been introduced to Ayn Rand’s novels since this program began. 

Essay Contests

• More than 24,000 students participated in the 2010-11 essay contests, based on Anthem, We The Living, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (as well as the Former Participants Contest: “How Has Reading Ayn Rand’s Novels Affected You?”).
• Since the inception of this program in 1986, more than 275,000 students have taken part in one or more of these essay contests—and ARI has awarded more than $969,000 in cash prizes to winners and runners-up (including this year’s upcoming prizes). 

Looking Ahead

We anticipate that we will enjoy continued success during the 2011-12 school year—with continued strong demand for the free books, and continued strong interest in our essay contests.

Your contribution will help to ensure the continued success of our essay contests, and help to ensure that we will be able to continue fulfilling requests from teachers requesting free copies of Ayn Rand’s novels for their classrooms.

These educational programs are crucial to our mission. Success in all of our long-term goals depends on a foundation created by introducing young people to Ayn Rand’s books and ideas.

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope that we can count on your support!

Sincerely,

Yaron Brook
President and Executive Director

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