May 19, 2008

the future of AKA

Dear Adopted Koreans Association members, mentors, and friends,

Congratulations on another successful academic year! No doubt you are all very excited to get on with your summer vacations, but before you do, please take a moment to read about the most recent updates and events happening for us.

AKA as a Non-Profit Organization
For the coming 2008-2009 academic year, AKA will no longer be maintaining its status as a University of Michigan student organization. Instead we will be actively moving in the direction of a full-fledged non-profit organization. By doing so, it will allow our general membership to expand beyond the bounds of a student/faculty-only group. Therefore, we will be able to reach out to other members of the adoption community in the greater Ann Arbor/Detroit area. In order to uphold our mission statement (view it here) to the fullest, we feel that it is necessary for us to push for an organization in which Adoptees are the ones who dictate the direction, rather than a larger organization. This does NOT mean that we with no longer be a presence on campus. We greatly appreciate the support that the university has provided for us over the years and we intend to maintain the strong relationships we have forged with other campus and off-campus organizations.

AKA Online!
The process of becoming a non-profit takes a lot of time, planning, and patience. Therefore, the majority of this year's summer activities will be web-based. We would like to invite everyone to join us both on our UMich blog, at this address, and also on our newly created online resource/networking page: http://akaonline.ning.com/ . Discussion topics and AKA news will be posted regularly-- we hope to see you all there!

How You Can Help
For those of you who are interested in participating in the development of this non-profit we are eagerly seeking your ideas and enthusiasm! Please feel free to send a message to hyerim.shin@gmail.com to let us know of your interest! We would like to schedule a meeting in the near future to discuss a time-line and the future goals of the non-profit.

We thank you all for your support and patience as we make this important transition-- please be sure to stay in touch! The future of AKA is going to be a great one, and we cannot wait to see where it takes us!

Best Regards,

Rachel Sisco
The Adopted Koreans Association

Posted by jdgls at 06:49 PM | Comments (1)