A native Hoosier and born leader, Arielle Brandy has always been motivated by three beliefs: education is empowerment, diverse leadership builds a strong future, and inclusive policy brings out the best in every community.
A proud Afro-Latina voting rights advocate and community organizer, Arielle works to empower women, youth and BIPOC. She has leveraged her passion for lifting the voices of Black and Brown communities into shifting the landscape of voting rights in the Hoosier state. Arielle currently serves as the Interim Executive Director of Indiana Voices and Votes and was previously Deputy Director of Indiana Progress/Indiana Democracy Collective, our state’s progressive donor table.
She has co-founded several organizations dedicated to engaging Indiana’s rising electorate, to help increase voter registration and mobilization; while sustaining voter empowerment and engagement among new youth voters and women. In 2020 she co-founded Vote Safe Indiana with the mission of improving safe voting policies amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Indiana State Director for the Pete for America Campaign, Arielle led volunteer & voter outreach efforts throughout the state, spearheaded national surrogate programs to include validators from Indiana, traveled as a National surrogate. Arielle later served as a policy committee advisor for the Biden/Harris campaign drafting policy on the first 100 days of the Biden/Harris Administration, the John Lewis Voting Rights act, affordable childcare policy, election administration policy and universal political participation policy.
Arielle was appointed as the Democratic Board Member of Voter Registration for St. Joseph County, where her work on voting rights & accessibility was showcased as a final Top 10 short film documentary at the University of Notre Dame.
For over a decade, Arielle was an Executive Board Member for Indiana Young Democrats and served two terms as the state’s first Afro-Latina President of the organization. In 2019, Arielle was appointed to serve on the Young Democrats of America’s convention planning committee, where she helped lead a national convention of more than 1,000 Young Democrats, Presidential candidates, speakers, and trainers. in 2022 Arielle served as National Secretary of the Young Democrats of America and currently serves a number of organizations, including Secretary of Planned Parenthood Advocates Alliance East and Alumnae Chair of Hoosier Women Forward, Indiana’s leading Democratic women’s leadership organization.
Arielle has made South Bend history as a recipient of the City of South Bend & SBCSC Hispanic Heritage Month’s Latino Leaders Award in 2020 and a ‘Leader Under 40’ by the City of South Bend in 2019. Her focus remains on bridging her community with the government that serves them.