Human flourishing expands when the principles of a free society are taught, tested, and renewed.

Support the WorkSee This Year's Impact

2025 at a Glance

How the IHS Network Put Liberal Principles to Work

Helping more than 1M Americans gain access to health care.

IHS scholars provided the evidence policymakers needed to pass nurse practitioner independence in Wisconsin—unlocking care for rural communities.

Nearly 100 Supreme Court citations, shaping cases on free speech and executive power.

From academic research to federal rulings, IHS-supported ideas reached decision-makers at the right moment—helping reinforce constitutional limits and influence cases now before the Court.

Growing the faculty community who teach 425,000 students the ideas of a free society.

With 217 new faculty placements this year, IHS is scaling its reach in the classroom—where its alumni now represent the majority at key centers advancing civic leadership and policy reform.

From Our President

What does it take for a free society to renew itself?

The turbulence of our moment—political polarization, technological upheaval, and the affordability crisis—reminds us that the survival of liberal democracy cannot be taken for granted.


Its institutions must be tended, strengthened, and sometimes rebuilt.

Emily Chamlee-WrightPresident & CEO, Institute for Humane Studies

How IHS Works

How IDEAS Become Impact

IHS creates the ecosystem where talent, ideas, and impact build on one another.

Grounded in the belief that every person is the dignified equal of every other, this work advances the freedom to think, speak, try, fail, learn, and try again. And when those principles prove out in the real world—through people, evidence, and institutions—they endure.

Talent

Develop Talent Early

Long-horizon investing in scholars who carry the ideas of a free and open society forward.

Ideas

Accelerate the Research

Closing the gap between liberal scholarship and the real-world questions it must answer.

Impact

Connect Ideas to Action

Ensuring that these ideas reach classrooms, courts, and public institutions.

Case Study

One line of research helped unlock primary care for over 1M Americans.

Alicia Plemmons didn’t set out to study health care regulation. She was a public finance economist asking questions her colleagues weren’t.

Alicia PlemmonsDirector, Knee Regulatory Research Center; Assistant Professor of General Business, West Virginia University

Where We’re Making an Impact

Building a Talent Network

IHS builds a growing network of thinkers whose teaching, research, and mentorship compound across classrooms, institutions, and public life.

When scholars succeed, impact compounds.

When more scholars trained within the liberal tradition of political, economic, and intellectual freedom produce rigorous research, engage in public debate, and teach the next generation, society becomes more capable of supporting widespread human flourishing.

Our network now spans more disciplines, sectors, and institutions than at any point in its history. When thousands work in concert, the effects compound across classrooms, policy arenas, and culture.

  • On track to exceed 10,000 scholars this decade—already two-thirds of the way there.

217 new professors in one year—our largest cohort ever.

This year, 217 IHS alumni stepped into faculty roles—the largest cohort in our history. Today, IHS alumni collectively reach more than 425,000 students each year—roughly one in every 28 undergraduates. With every new faculty position, that influence grows. More classrooms become places where serious questions about freedom are explored, and more early-stage scholars begin their path as the next generation of thought leaders advancing liberal principles of freedom, equality, and constitutional restraint.

  • 37 placements at R1 research universities
  • 77% growth in first-time appointments in a contracting market
James Hooks

Chase Center, Ohio State

Evan Soltas

Princeton

Wilbur Townsend

UC Berkeley

Andrew Lichter

Stanford

Case Study

From one scholar to many generations advancing freedom.

Three decades ago, IHS supported David Schmidtz as a promising graduate student.

David SchmidtzFounder, Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, University of Arizona; Professor, West Virginia University
Case Study

From a first taste of intellectual freedom to a faculty position shaping the next generation.

When James Hooks attended an IHS Graduate Conference as a doctoral student at Oxford, he found something he hadn’t encountered in his education in Canada or the UK.

James HooksChase Center for Renewing America's Foundations, Ohio State University
Case Study

What was once hidden in Romanian classrooms now shapes the way she teaches.

Paula Ganga grew up in Romania as the country emerged from dictatorship.

Paula GangaAssistant Professor of Political Economy, Duke Kunshan University; Visiting Fellow, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University
Case Study

He fled tyranny. Now he's shaping how Americans understand freedom.

Daniel Di Martino grew up in Venezuela. His parents aren’t academics. He attended a state school on a scholarship. When he decided to pursue a PhD, he had no obvious path there.

Daniel Di MartinoFounder, The Dissident Project; Fellow, Manhattan Institute

Accelerating Research to Meet the Moment

IHS accelerates the research that moves ideas from the margins into the center of academic and public debate.

Case Study

The question silenced in Brazil, now advancing at Harvard.

Jean Vilbert became one of Brazil’s youngest judges. He also discovered there were questions he wasn’t allowed to ask.

Jean VilbertDoctoral Student, Harvard University; Former Brazilian Judge
Case Study

A neighbor’s parable. A career built on asking the right questions.

Daniel Smith grew up in a low-income household in central Michigan. When his father read him a parable about wild hogs lured into a trap by free food, something clicked.

Daniel SmithProfessor of Economics, Middle Tennessee State University
Case Study

A living room argument became the research that reframed how we think about polarization.

Verlan Lewis first found IHS as a high schooler in Oregon, searching for scholarships. A pamphlet pointed him there.

Verlan LewisStirling Professor of Constitutional Studies, Utah Valley University; Author, The Myth of Left and Right

Ideas into Action

IHS doesn't just develop scholars. It builds the systems that turn their work into coordinated action when it matters most.

ScholarsEdge

Turn weeks of research into minutes.

ScholarsEdge is IHS’s AI-powered platform for research, policy analysis, and teaching—built to move ideas from scholarship into practice before the window closes. Built scholar by scholar, bottleneck by bottleneck, ScholarsEdge democratizes access to data and analysis tools that once lived only in well-funded institutions—enabling rigorous research to move at the pace of real decisions. Today it is used by more than 2,000 scholars and 45 partner organizations, from university research centers to state-based think tanks to organizations like AEI, Cato, FIRE, and Pacific Legal Foundation.

  • When the Pacific Legal Foundation set out to challenge government mandates requiring preferential treatment based on race and sex, disorganized records across hundreds of agencies meant building a solid evidence base would take months. ScholarsEdge cut that timeline to days. That data now underpins active litigation defending equal protection under the law.
Research Incubators

Getting the right evidence to decision-makers on time.

Policy debates often move faster than academic scholarship. Decisions get made with incomplete evidence—and communities live with the consequences. IHS research incubators—like the Health Research Incubator—close that gap by identifying the questions that matter most and connecting scholars to the decision-makers who need answers.

We provide the funding, convenings, and data infrastructure to accelerate the work—and ensure it reaches the people positioned to act while decisions are still open.

  • Delivered evidence when decisions were still open
  • Helped pass nurse practitioner independence in Wisconsin
  • Expanded primary care access to 1 million+ rural residents
The Conversation Partnership

From Research to Reach

Ideas need audiences. Through our partnership with The Conversation, IHS scholars bring rigorous research into national media—translating complex ideas into accessible commentary on live policy debates. This creates a direct pathway from research to reach, positioning scholars as trusted public voices.

From there, the impact compounds. Scholars gain visibility, ideas reach wider audiences, and principled perspectives enter debates where they’re needed most.

  • From zero to 200+ scholars contributing to national media in weeks
  • 15 placements reaching 500,000+ readers, including syndication in The Washington Post
  • Direct byline credit positioning IHS scholars in top-tier national outlets

Leading the Civics Revival

Across the country, universities are launching centers devoted to America’s founding principles, constitutional history, and the habits of civic life. Of the eleven launched since 2017, ten are led by IHS scholars alumni. Over the next three years, an estimated 500 new civics-focused academic positions will open nationwide. IHS has built the only network operating at the scale required to prepare scholars for these roles.

  • 10 of the 11 civics centers launched since 2017 are led by IHS alumni.
  • An estimated 500 new civics-focused academic positions will open nationwide in the next three years.
Case Study
From a small reading group to a campus center for civic education.

When IHS supported Kimberly Hurd Hale and her colleague Drew Kurlowski in hosting a reading group on liberty and the American founding, the goal was modest: create space for serious conversation outside the classroom.

Kimberly Hurd Hale

Professor, Coastal Carolina University

Why They Give

“Sustaining a free and flourishing society requires more than good ideas—it requires principled leaders and the systems that allow them to work together effectively. IHS invests in both, building a talent network and strengthening the ecosystem for people and organizations working to advance a free and open society.”

Brian HooksChairman & CEO, Stand Together

“I’m always pleased when I can introduce someone to IHS, and even more gratified when their experience makes them pursue a career in liberty. That’s why I’m a regular IHS donor.”

Alexander VolokhEmory University

“My career path was changed when I met an IHS professor at my undergrad institution. Now, I'm working on a PhD and hoping to have the same impact on hundreds of students in this same way and, without the support of IHS, this would not be possible. [...] We will now have the chance to reach so many students throughout our careers because of you. There are few investments that really have a chance at reaching thousands of young and eager minds, and supporting IHS is one of those investments.”

Malcolm Scott KingUrsinus College

Help Build What Comes Next

Liberalism.org

A Home for Liberal Reasoning

An emerging coalition of classical liberals, center-left institutionalists, center-right constitutionalists, and market-oriented reformers continue to believe in open inquiry, limited power, and human dignity. Yet they lack a common home for the productive disagreements that liberal reasoning requires, and which public discourse has largely abandoned.

We’re launching Liberalism.org to address that gap. Powered by the strongest liberal academic network in the country, it is a digital gathering place for thinking through the tensions a free society inevitably produces: between individual autonomy and shared obligation, market dynamism and social stability, and pluralism and common purpose. Liberalism.org is the home where scholars and public intellectuals weigh real trade-offs, think across differences, and apply liberal principles to concrete choices facing free societies.

Liberalism.org
The Trust & Governance Initiative

Renewing Institutional Foundations

When institutions fail to deliver, the cost is not just inefficiency. It is a loss of faith in the liberal democratic project itself. Americans increasingly question not only their government’s competence, but also whether the system can work at all. That doubt creates space for authoritarian alternatives.

Yet liberalism has always been a builder of institutions—from constitutional design to independent courts—not merely a critic of power. The same tradition that developed enforceable contracts, decentralized governance, and market dynamism can be brought to bear on today’s institutional failures. New technologies, from artificial intelligence to digital governance tools, expand what reform can look like.

The Trust & Governance Initiative (TGI) is a three-year, cross-partisan effort to meet this moment. Its aim is to strengthen the institutions that can re-earn citizens’ trust.

Drawing on IHS’s network of more than 7,000 scholars, TGI convenes researchers, policy innovators, and practitioners to develop and test structural reforms, from government reorganization and election design to rebuilding the information ecosystem.

The ideas are ready. The question is: who will be prepared to use them?

Freedom Endures Because People Choose to Teach It, Test It, and Pass It On

Your support sustains a community of liberal scholars who carry that work forward in classrooms, courtrooms, and public life, and builds the infrastructure that turns their ideas into results.

$USD

How Resources Are Used

Statement of Activities for the Year Ended August 31, 2025

Operating Revenue & Support

The vast majority of IHS funding comes from contributions, reflecting a strong base of donor support. Additional revenue from investments and earned income helps sustain and extend this work.

  • Contributions93%
    $19,673,897
  • Interest & Dividends4%
    $952,787
  • Rental Revenue1%
    $271,586
  • Other Revenue0.9%
    $196,174
  • In-Kind Services0.4%
    $89,256
  • Conference Fees0.2%
    $46,638
  • Total Operating Revenue
    $21,230,338

EXPENSES

Over 80% of expenses go directly to program services, ensuring resources are focused on advancing IHS’s mission.

  • Programs & Research82%
    $16,808,415
  • Management & General10%
    $1,966,169
  • Fundraising8%
    $1,695,256
  • Total Operating Expenses
    $20,469,840