Asian Community Development Council

The organization conducts outreach and civic engagement activities that include voter registration, voter mobilization, and the distribution of educational materials. Other activities include providing aid to those seeking citizenship, food assistance, meals for healthcare workers, and pop-up flu vaccination clinics. ²

Background

The Asian Community Development Council (ACDC) is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based community organization that serves Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) residents of Nevada that received its nonprofit status in 2015. ³

ACDC receives financial support from the major casino corporations based in Nevada as well as from left-of-center foundations like the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

Luke Rosiak in his book Race To The Bottom, Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education, mentions ACDC as an “innocuous-sounding group” that through its relationship with the Alliance for Youth Organizing (AYO) supports policies that harm Asian Americans, such as changing admission standards for magnet schools. ⁴

Activities

Elections

Asian Community Development Council provides information on registration and voting on its website as well as get-out-the-vote events encouraging its audience to make their voices heard. The organization partners with Silver State Voices to conduct voter registration drives with success at Asian and Pacific Islander-related events. ACDC advocated before state and local government for a redistricting plan that better represented the AAPI community that it represents. ^{5 6 7 8}

Citizenship Assistance

The organization aids its constituents in applying for citizenship via face-to-face appointments and workshops with language assistance provided. ⁹

Anti-Asian Hate

The organization matched $5,000 in a fund-raising drive to aid in the recovery of a restaurant worker who was injured in a shooting. It also conducts self-defense classes and meets with local police and state representatives to ensure support against anti-Asian hate. ⁶

Operation Home

As of 2022, ACDC’s newest program was to aid in finding homes for homeless constituents and provide them with up to one year of financial assistance. ⁶

College Readiness Bootcamp

ACDC partners with Leaders in Training to provide preparation direction for high school students planning to attend college. ⁶

Promoting Good Health

ACDC provides information about available insurance coverage, providing them with state-licensed health navigators and referrals to Nevada Health Link. The organization provides language assistance for Tagalog, Spanish, Mandarin, Thai, and Vietnamese speaking clients. ¹⁰

The organization opened a HAPI (Healthy Asian Pacific Islander) medical center that removes language barriers for patients. ⁶

ACDC provides a COVID-19 vaccine pop-up clinic that moves from neighborhood to neighborhood and sponsored events to provide vaccines, blood pressure and body mass index screenings. ¹¹

Food Assistance Program

ACDC provides emergency food services through a food pantry for households earning up to $58,287 annually. Recipients are required to apply and meet other requirements prior to receiving the assistance. The organization became a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Community Partner and leverages the program for the benefit of its community. ¹²

Funding

Asian Community Development Council is a recipient of grants from left-of-center Open Society Foundations and is a partner of Alliance for Youth Organizing (AYO). AYO provides financial assistance for ACDC and advocates for restorative, economic, health, and climate equal outcomes. AYO is designed to grow “progressive people power” by supporting local youth organizations via their alliance. ¹³

AYO affiliates include left-of-center Next Up, a young voter registration and activation organization, and Chicago Votes, a left-of-center organization that seeks to make changes to voting laws that would make it far easier to register voters. ^{13 14}

ACDC is funded by private foundation donations and multiple major corporations. Corporate sponsors include The Sands, Caesars Entertainment, NV Energy, MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming, America First National Bank, Humana, and Yaamava’ Resort and Casino. ¹

The organization received a $350,000 grant from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, an organization funding higher education and left-of-center Asian-American advocacy organizations. It has also received funding from the Tides Foundation, a passthrough funder of left-of-center non-profits, as well as the Institute for a Progressive Nevada, a group that advocates for gun control and other liberal policies. ^{6 15}

ACDC reported a 2020 revenue of $3,1177,806. Expenses were reported as $2,611,686 with salaries and other compensation of $1,263,800. Net assets at the end of the year were $741,492. ¹⁶

Leadership

Vida Chan Lin is president and founder of ACDC. A former insurance agency owner, she has sat on boards of Nevada Equity Cabinet and College of Southern Nevada Diversity Council and is a former member of the Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor’s Roundtable. ¹⁷