The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation
Basic facts
Location:	Washington, D.C.
Type:	501(c)(3)
Year founded:	1973
Website:	Official website

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative 501(c)(3) nonprofit think tank founded in 1973 and based in Washington, D.C. In 2013, The Atlantic described the organization as "the de facto policy arm of the congressional conservative caucus."

The think tank is affiliated with but run independently from Heritage Action for America, a 501(c)(4) political advocacy group.

The foundation's current president is Kevin Roberts. Roberts, a former chief executive officer of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, was announced as the organization's new president on October 14, 2021.

Mission

As of May 2017, the website for The Heritage Foundation listed the following mission statement for the organization:

“

The mission of The Heritage Foundation is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

”

Background

The Heritage Foundation's initial funding came from political conservative Joseph Coors, co-owner of the Coors Brewing Company. Funding from Coors was later augmented by financial support from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich was its first president. He was followed as president in 1977 by Edwin Feulner Jr. Feulner co-founded the organization with Weyrich; both were previously congressional aides. Feulner had worked as the staff director of the House Republican Study Committee and as a staff assistant to U.S. Congressman Phil Crane.

In 2013, former Senator Jim DeMint took over as the organization's president. He was removed by the board of trustees on May 2, 2017. According to Politico, the decision was based on the board's disapproval of DeMint's decision to shift away from policy proposals toward more political action. After DeMint's removal, Feulner became president again, until foundation board member Kay Coles James was selected in December 2017 to serve as the organization's next president. James officially became president on January 1, 2018.

The think tank was founded to develop conservative policy proposals and submit them to legislators. According to The Atlantic, the organization occupied a place as one of the most influential conservative think tanks from its founding. The magazine wrote, "It came to occupy a place of special privilege—a quasi-official arm of GOP administrations and Congresses; a sponsor of scholarship and supplier of legislation; a policy base for the party when out of power. Heritage has shaped American public policy in major ways, from Reagan’s missile-defense initiative to Clinton’s welfare reform: Both originated as Heritage proposals."

Work

As a 501(c)(3) research organization, The Heritage Foundation researches and publishes policy papers. According to Politico, the organization began working with what it called a briefcase test for all of its policy proposals: "[A]ll Heritage reports had to be able to fit into briefcases and be readable in less than an hour. The executive summaries of the reports were even designed to be digested by senators and representatives riding on the Capitol subway on the way to a vote."

Mandate for Leadership

Heritage's 1981 book of policy analysis, Mandate for Leadership, proposed a set of detailed conservative policies for changing the federal government. The original proposal consisted of 20 volumes and 3,000 pages; it was later published in a condensed version that totaled more than 1,000 pages. The Mandate for Leadership offered specific recommendations on policy, budget and administrative action for all Cabinet departments, as well as agencies to be staffed by political appointees in the incoming conservative administration of President Ronald Reagan (R). Reagan gave a copy to each member of his Cabinet at their first meeting. According to The Atlantic, 60 percent of the document's policy ideas were being implemented by the end of Reagan's first year in office. The Heritage Foundation followed the original document with six editions, released between 1984 and 2005.

Contract with America, 1994

In 1994, Heritage advised Newt Gingrich and other conservatives on the development of the Contract with America, which was credited with helping to produce a Republican majority in Congress. The Contract was a pact of principles that directly challenged both the political status-quo in Washington and many of the ideas at the heart of the Clinton administration. As such, Heritage is often credited with supplying many of the ideas that ultimately proved influential in ending the Democrats' control of Congress in 1994.

Policy Review

Until 2001, The Heritage Foundation published Policy Review, a scholarly public policy journal, which was then acquired by the Hoover Institution.

Townhall.com

Beginning in 1995, The Heritage Foundation published Townhall.com as a conservative web community. The site split with The Heritage Foundation in 2005 to focus more on news reporting from a conservative perspective.

Index of Economic Freedom

In partnership with The Wall Street Journal, Heritage publishes the annual Index of Economic Freedom, which assesses the economics of countries around the world. The Index scores are based on Heritage's perspectives on a country's economic policies; they score each country based on 12 factors related to economics.

Policy scope

Heritage Foundation lists their main issues on their website. The following is a list of some of those issues and an abbreviated summary of the foundation's position:

• Agriculture: "Lawmakers should take a hard look at whether farm policies that were created to assist poor family farmers during the Great Depression make any sense in the current era of hugely profitable agribusinesses. They should enact policies that allow farmers to base their crop-planting decisions on market demand, not government subsidies and regulations."
• Budget and spending: "To restore fiscal health, the federal government should reduce taxes, cut wasteful spending, and reform the massive entitlements."
• Economy: "Free-market, pro-growth policies are critical to enable our economy to flourish."
• Education: "Effective education policy includes returning authority to the states and empowering parents with the opportunity to choose a safe and effective education for their children from among public, private, religious, charter, online and home school opportunities."
• Energy and environment: "Energy and environmental policy is a national priority. Lawmakers should implement a long-term plan that allows free markets to balance supply and demand, ensures reliable and competitively priced energy for the future, and creates incentives for responsible stewardship of the nation's resources and environment."
• Family and marriage: "The family, centered on marriage, is the basic unit of society. Healthy marriages and families are the foundation of thriving communities. When marriages break down, communities suffer and the role of government tends to expand. Sound public policy places marriage and the family at the center, respecting and guarding the role of this permanent institution."
• Healthcare: "America's health care financing and insurance systems need major reform. Policymakers should take decisive steps to move today's bureaucracy driven, heavily regulated third-party payment system to a new patient-centered system of consumer choice and real free-market competition. In such a system, individuals and families would make the key decisions and control the flow of dollars."
• Immigration: "The United States was established on principles that support the welcoming of new residents to our shores to learn and embrace American civic culture and political institutions through the processes of immigration and naturalization. Over the past several decades, however, immigration policy has become skewed, falsely presented as an uncompromising decision between unfettered immigration and none at all."
• Taxes: "America’s tax code needs reform. It discourages working, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship. It hinders productivity, job growth, international competitiveness, and wage increases. The New Flat Tax, The Heritage Foundation’s tax reform plan, would fix these flaws. Families and businesses would pay a one simple tax with a single tax rate under the plan."
• Homeland security: "Americans must recommit themselves to living the principles that made this nation safe, free, and prosperous while defending them against attack. The only way to reduce America's vulnerability is to provide persistent, sensible homeland security."

Leadership

Kevin Roberts is the foundation's seventh and current president. He was named to the post on October 14, 2021. As of December 2021, the official website of the Heritage Foundation listed the following individuals as members of the organization's board of trustees:

• Barb Van Andel-Gaby, Chairwoman
• Michael W. Gleba, Vice Chairman
• Kay Coles James
• Larry P. Arnn
• Edwin J. Feulner
• Steve Forbes
• Robert P. George
• Ryan Haggerty
• Price Harding
• Virginia Heckman
• Jerry Hume
• Mark A. Kolokotrones
• Edwin Meese III
• Rebekah Mercer
• The Hon. J. William Middendorf II
• Abby Spencer Moffat
• Nersi Nazari
• Robert Pennington
• Anthony J. Saliba
• Thomas A. Saunders III
• Brian Tracy

Finances

The following is a breakdown of The Heritage Foundation's revenues and expenses as submitted to the IRS for the 2013 to 2015 fiscal years:

Annual revenue and expenses for The Heritage Foundation, 2013–2015
Tax Year	Total Revenue	Total Expenses
2015	$92,008,484	$80,679,043
2014	$96,969,906	$82,107,321
2013	$112,690,147	$80,161,735

Tax status

The Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Its 501(c) designation refers to a section of the U.S. federal income tax code concerning charitable, religious, and educational organizations. Section 501(c) of the U.S. tax code has 29 sections that list specific conditions particular organizations must meet in order to be considered tax-exempt under the section. Organizations that have been granted 501(c)(3) status by the Internal Revenue Service are exempt from federal income tax. This exemption requires that any political activity by the charitable organization be nonpartisan in nature.

Affiliated programs

The Heritage Foundation is affiliated with the 501(c)(4) advocacy group Heritage Action for America. The two are run independently but share a board of trustees.

Noteworthy events

Barred from Republican Study Committee meetings, 2013

In August 2013 it was announced that the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of 172 conservative House members, barred Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action employees from attending its weekly meeting in the Capitol. According to the National Journal, the RSC and Heritage initially split over disagreements regarding a July 2013 vote on the farm bill.

Jim DeMint firing

On May 2, 2017, the board of trustees voted unanimously to remove former Sen. Jim DeMint as president of The Heritage Foundation. According to Politico, the decision was based on the board's disapproval of DeMint's decision to shift away from policy proposals toward more political action.

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Heritage Foundation. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

The Heritage Foundation - Google News

See also

• Heritage Action for America
• 501(c)(3)
• Jim DeMint

External links

• Heritage Foundation official website
• Heritage Foundation official blog
• Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation
• Policy Experts: The Inside Guide to Public Policy Experts and Organizations, list of policy experts by topic and location published by The Heritage Foundation.
• Lee Edwards, The Power of Ideas: The Heritage Foundation at 25 Years, authorized history (book) for the period 1973 to 1998. (Chapter 1 online at The New York Times)

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