Creating State Think Tanks
Thomas Roe, founder of the construction-supply firm Builder Marts, was an active public-policy donor until his death in 2000. When he expressed an interest in the “New Federalism” proposed by Read more…
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ACLU LGBT Project
Since establishing its LGBT Project in 1986 (to expand lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights), the American Civil Liberties Union has received about $20 million of earmarked donations to support Read more…
Sparking Welfare Reform
In 1986, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation built an intellectual coalition for welfare reform. Its $300,000 grant assembled top conservative and liberal social scientists to see if agreement could Read more…
Minting New Democrats
Following President Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election in 1984, moderate Democrats sought ways to push their party away from doctrinaire liberalism and toward the political center. Party loyalist Al From organized Read more…
Koch Brothers Take Up Advocacy
From the mid-’70s to mid-’80s, brothers Charles and David Koch contributed to public-policy philanthropy mainly by building the Cato Institute, Mercatus Center, and other research organizations capable of formulating detailed Read more…
Religion in Public Life
Richard Neuhaus, a Catholic priest who had been an anti-war activist in the 1960s, took a look at the rise of the Religious Right in the 1970s and found himself Read more…
A Foundation Behind the Iron Curtain
In 1984, currency speculator George Soros established the first private foundation in a communist country, in his native Hungary. The government in Budapest hoped that by sponsoring Hungarian students to Read more…
Birth of the Federalist Society
The Institute for Educational Affairs, a group backed by the Olin, Earhart, JM, Scaife, and Smith Richardson foundations, provided a grant of $15,000 in 1982 to underwrite a legal conference Read more…
Give Peace a Grant
Coincident with the election of President Ronald Reagan, a “nuclear freeze” movement sprang up to oppose research and development of nuclear technology, advocate for disarmament, criticize American “belligerence,” resist a Read more…
New Efforts to Open Minds on Campus
Philanthropists bothered by the conformity of liberal orthodoxy on college campuses have long supported outposts where alternative views could be offered to a new generation of young students. The founding Read more…
Austrian Economics Along the Potomac
A center devoted to market-based economics and philosophy, called the Austrian Economics Program, was established at Rutgers University in the late-1970s with a grant from philanthropist Charles Koch. It was Read more…
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign began its life in 1980 as a PAC—a mechanism for funneling campaign donations to elect gay-friendly politicians. In 1982 the organization distributed $140,000 to 118 congressional Read more…
Putting Milton Friedman on PBS
After the liberal economist John Galbraith filmed The Age of Uncertainty, a television series for the BBC, several American philanthropists and corporations looked for a way to even the ideological Read more…
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
In 1980, the mother of a 13-year-old California girl who was killed by a repeat drunk driver founded a nonprofit to fight back. Mothers Against Drunk Driving helped set the Read more…
Starting the Presses for Conservative Student Journalists
In 1980, Irving Kristol encouraged donors to support a new conservative student publication at the University of Chicago. Before long, the John M. Olin Foundation and other donors were building Read more…
Questioning Statism in Manhattan and Elsewhere
While visiting the U.S. after World War II, entrepreneur Antony Fisher was impressed by the work of agriculturalists at Cornell University who were transforming chicken farming from a cottage industry Read more…
MacArthur’s Money Moves Left
Shortly before businessman John MacArthur died, as one of the two or three wealthiest men in America, the insurance and real-estate magnate created a foundation. He was a selfish and Read more…
A Popular Tax Revolt
In a 1978 referendum, nearly two thirds of California voters approved Proposition 13, which lowered and capped the state’s property taxes and heralded the coming of a nationwide “tax revolt” Read more…
Improving Ideological Diversity Among Reporters
Decades of research have shown that the large majority of working journalists define themselves as political liberals. Conservatives who consider this a problem have made efforts, with donor support, to Read more…
Rise of the Cato Institute
When businessman Charles Koch learned that Libertarian Party leader Ed Crane was thinking about leaving politics, he asked what it would take to keep him involved. Crane suggested that libertarianism Read more…