PSAID

Professor Support

Welcome, Professor!

Thank you for your interest in the PSAid student contest! Since 2006, the PSAid contest has challenged students to develop compelling and creative print and video Public Service Announcements (PSAs) that educate the American public on the most effective ways to support international disaster relief.

PSAid is a terrific way to help aspiring producers and graphic designers—and your school—gain public exposure while delivering a critical message.Through this competition, students gain valuable, real-world experience by applying what they’ve learned to a real-life need. Also, they have the chance to earn national recognition. First, second and third place winners in each category will be broadcast nationally and showcased on the USAID Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) website and YouTube channel. Several prior winners have seen their PSAs broadcast during NFL games, on popular shows including The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Bachelor, and printed in top-tier publications and websites, such as Forbes and Scientific American.

Ways to Incorporate PSAid into your Curriculum

If your curriculum includes graphic design, advertising or PSA development, campaigns, or video production, we hope you will consider having your students learn through PSAid. They’ll hone their skills through real-life application AND contribute to an important cause at the same time.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can incorporate the PSAid contest into your curriculum:

  1. Position CIDI as a client who needs a multi-faceted campaign to support their mission. Have students develop static image, GIF (digital image) and video PSAs as complementary pieces of the same unified campaign execution. Require distribution strategies, if applicable to your class.
  2. Use this competition as a framework to teach effective communications, messaging execution, client management and/or commercial design.
  3. Assign teams to work together throughout the semester to provide a real-world agency-to-client experience.
  4. Offer extra credit to students who choose to participate on an individual basis.
    Set up a competition among students—between classes in your department or even your department versus another!

We provide several resources to help you prepare, inform and get your students involved:

The CIDI Team is happy to augment your class assignments to offer students the opportunity to gain real-world experience and build their portfolios. Plus, if you or your students have questions about the contest, our team can set up a conference call for your class with someone from CIDI. Contact us at [email protected] to schedule a briefing.