Alumni Spotlight: Todd Morris

By: Ayaan Abbasi

“Everything was a blank sheet of paper,” Todd Morris, member of IUDM’s first and second executive councils, said of the very first executive council meeting in the spring of 1991.

In 1991, IU Dance Marathon’s first executive council set the stage for an organization that has now raised over $50 million for Riley Hospital for Children. That very first year, Todd was in charge of Rules and Regulations (what is now Dancer Relations), and in his second year, he took the role of President.

Despite the challenges that came with creating a new organization, they remained committed to the cause and their goal to create something that would make a difference at IU. “All we had was a big dream and some amazing people,” he said. 

Todd compared it to creating a start-up, with one of the memories he still has being running out of food mid-marathon and running to Target to buy as much food as possible. However, throughout handling every logistical task that came up, their dedication to achieving a vision they had still remained and culminated in raising over $10,000 that first year. 

While IUDM's first year was about building an event, IUDM’s second year, for Todd, was about building an organization that would create a “national movement,” recruiting more dancers and fundraising more than they did before. That experience still carries over to Todd’s life today.

“If you fully commit, there’s no limit to how it will reward you in your life and change you,” Todd says. “There are lots of organizations to join at IU, but there’s only one Dance Marathon movement.”

From the start, IUDM was built on creating a family, not only for the students leading the organization, but every member involved. Today, that culture still remains in IUDM and within those first and second executive councils. To this day, they still get together multiple times a year and have a text chain they text on weekly.

That fall of 1991, when Todd and the first executive council successfully put on the first IU Dance Marathon, they created a legacy that continues to make an impact today. “I don’t think [IUDM’s] just changed me, but I think it’s changing the world and the lives of tens of thousands of people.”