We are proud of the lives we have changed and the impact we’ve made these past 50 years. However, we believe that with the right resources, we could do much more. Two years ago, we began to look back at our last 50 years – our successes and our challenges – and began a strategic analysis of how to increase our effectiveness and expand our TFAS programs. We’ve determined five strategic priorities that can grow our impact exponentially. Investors in the Liberty + Leadership Campaign will help us to identify and recruit exceptional students to FTE and TFAS, educate them in the principles of liberty and free-market economics, develop their talents and place them in positions of influence in public policy, politics, journalism, international affairs and the nonprofit sector. The result will be an engaged and energized leadership force advancing the cause of liberty for decades to come.
If you’d like to speak with someone about how you can support the Liberty + Leadership campaign, please contact us at 202.986.0384 or by email at info@TFAS.org. You may also make a gift online at www.TFAS.org/Support.
Combatting Economic Ignorance
$3 Million toward this initiative will allow TFAS to:
+ Expand the highly effective programs of our affiliate The Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE) to reach more high school students and teachers every year with programs that teach core economic principles and leadership skills, imbuing faculty and the rising generation with the discipline of economic decision making.
+ Create a scholarship endowment to ensure FTE never turns away a deserving student interested in attending our programs.
+ Introduce new curriculum modules that will double the number of high school teachers who participate in our training programs from 850 to 1,700. These teachers will impart key concepts of economics and share our unique curriculum of “the economic way of thinking” to over 100,000 young people over the next three years.
The economics course has been the single best class that I have ever taken. It has developed my confidence in critical thinking more than any experience in my life. It’s everything that I’ve wanted in an education – an open marketplace for my assumptions and ideas to be constantly challenged.” – Jack Willett (ICPES 17)
Creating the Leadership Scholars Program
An investment of $12 Million toward this initiative will allow TFAS to:
+ Provide 1,200 full scholarships for our new Leadership Scholars Program to the best and the brightest students over the next five years.
+ Identify and recruit students with the talent and drive to become game changers in professions of public policy, journalism, law and foreign policy, utilizing our network of more than 1,000 free-market professors and more than a dozen partner youth organizations.
Enriching and Expanding Our Programs
$3 Million toward this initiative will allow TFAS to:
+ Enrich our program offerings with an enhanced speaker series, targeted professional development workshops and increased mentorship opportunities, as well as creating new economic workshops for students taking economics for the first time or looking for a more immersive course.
+ Hire a full-time academic director who will review and evaluate all TFAS and FTE programs to ensure that students leave us with a thorough understanding of democratic principles and constitutional rights and privileges, with a grounding in free-market economics.
+ Enhance the Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship Program by establishing eight annual meetings that bring current and former fellows together for a cross-pollination of ideas and professional development, reinforcing one another in the battle of ideas and the struggle to uncover the truths about the day’s most pressing stories.
+ Expand our Public Policy Fellows Program, in response to market demand, to a national program offering fellowships in four areas: (1) A national alumni program for select outstanding alumni to discuss policy that protects individual freedom at the local, state and national levels; (2) A Washington-based program open to all young leaders working in public policy, including those who have not yet attended a TFAS program; (3) A journalism public policy program, comprising education and training for early career media professionals as a precursor to our highly-regarded Novak Journalism Fellowship Program; and (4) an international affairs public policy program.
Engaging and Supporting the Alumni Network
$2 Million toward this initiative will allow TFAS to:
+ Establish an Alumni Relations Office, allowing us to connect with our 17,000 alumni and activate them as advocates for the ideas of liberty and free markets.
+ Provide career placement services, utilizing our extensive network in Washington, D.C. and around the country, to assist alumni in securing jobs where they can make a difference as honorable leaders advancing liberty and free-market economics.
+ Create Alumni Connect – an online platform that will house the most up-to-date information about alumni and facilitate communication and professional networking among peers, as well as host an in-house online education portal.
+ Establish TFAS Alumni Leadership Academy and Summit to offer targeted opportunities for engaged and influential alumni. The academy and annual summit will educate these individuals to be more effective in their careers and the fight for freedom, and to be ambassadors for The TFAS Journey.
Sustaining our Critical Work
Goal: $10 Million
By making a special investment in honor of the TFAS 50th anniversary, you will ensure TFAS continues its important mission and ongoing work by supporting the areas of greatest need. Through your generosity, we can ensure TFAS continues to reach young people with the ideas of liberty, free-market economics and honorable leadership for generations to come.