2007 Accomplishments

Due to being on ARI's official mailing list, Dr. Yaron Brook has sent me - as well as everyone else on the list - ARI's accomplishments for 2007. The two most significant ones will be listed in bold.

• "First, we have secured first-year funding for ARI's proposed expansion of its policy advocacy work - and with it, the establishment of a presence for the Institute in Washington, D.C."
• The Institute has reached yet another important milestonefor their Free Books to Teachers program by shipping their one-millionth free copy of an Ayn Rand work to an educator for his or her classroom.
• The fiscal year of 2007 ended with a total of $6,817,128, a more than 36% increase compared to 2006's $5,002,304. Revenues from the Ayn Rand bookstore and other Objectivist Conferences rose to just below $7.9 million.
• Highschool teachers requested 292,000 copies of Anthem and The Fountainhead.
• More than 25,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged were shipped to highschools across the nation.
• More than 800,000 copies of Rand's novels have been sent to educators since 2002.
• Ayn Rand's novels are being taught in approximately 25,000 highschools in the United States and Canada.
• It is estimated that 4-million students will be introduced to Anthem and/or The Fountainhead as a result of ARI's efforts.
• Anthem and The Fountainhead essay contests broke the record by attracting more than 20,000 entrants in 2007.
• Two websites were launched for teachers and their students to understand and "enhance their appreciation of" Ayn Rand and her ideas.
• More than 120 Objectivist clubs at universities are now registered with ARI.
• The college-level essay contest of Atlas Shrugged showed a 25% increase in participation in 2007 compared to that of 2006.
• ARI participated in 41 campus talks last year.
• ARI secured a total of 16 national TV interviews; every Wednesday, Dr. Yaron Brook will appear on the Fox Business Network.
• The Ayn Rand Institute's op-ed program "saw 59 different pieces written by ARI staff intellectuals appear 611 times in 257 newspapers and Web sites - reaching an estimated cumlative circulation of more than 14.7 million people.
• ARI's letters-to-the-editors had a record-breaking year: they recieved the greatest number of "hits" in major newspapers - 48 - and the largest number of estimated readers - 27 million - in ARI's history.
• To mark the 50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, ARI's media department "offered free copies of the novel to more than 1,500 journalists, media professionals, and radio and TV talk show producers and hosts."
• Penguin Publishing reports that their gross sale of Ayn Rand's four novels in 2006 was 702,163 - an all-time high and up 2% from 2005. If these numbers include ARI's orders as well, "sales by Penguin otherwise increased by 8 percent from 2005."
• "Paperback sales of Atlas Shrugged increased by 2 percent to 127,352. Excluding ARI orders from both years, sales by Penguin increased by 10 percent over the previous year. Annual sales of Atlas Shrugged are higher today than when the first hardcover or paperback edition were published."
• Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged has sold more than 100,000 copies annually.
• This Fall, an additional 50 students entered the OAC program.
• "OAC's arrangment with Chapman University in Orange County, California, continues into its third year."
• A new website is launched for the OAC.
• ARI co-funded a special workshop at the University of Pittsburgh for OAC graduate students in philosophy.

...and many more. Whew that was a task!