Fighting for the Next Generation

Equipping America’s Rising Leaders

Your Impact

The Future of the Movement

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• 400+ fellows from across the country and around the world took part in Heritage’s new Academy online fellowship program in 2020, including college students, graduates students, and high school students.
• Fellows weren’t just hard-core conservatives—they included moderates and even some left-leaning college and graduate students.
• 95 percent of Academy fellows told us they’d consider pursuing a career in the conservative movement.
• 99 percent of fellows told us they were committed to “building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.”

My internship was foundational for me in sorting out my career path post-graduation. I didn’t know where I would end up in the conservative movement, but I knew I wanted to be engaged in the fight.

Darius Franklin (top) and Abigail Klare (bottom) were among the Academy fellows who participated in the 2020 President’s Club Meeting.

2020 Impact

Education

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• As Heritage urged, Oklahoma used a portion of funding allocated through the CARES Act to provide ESA-style accounts to families. Heritage supported a similar effort in South Carolina that resulted in the state moving to make its CARES funds portable.
• In August, more than 1,700 people registered for Heritage’s virtual summit Protecting Children in Education to strategize against explicit K-12 sexual education materials in America’s schools.
• The White House released an executive order permitting Community Service Block Grant funds to be used for ESA-style options by families that don’t have access to in-person learning.
• Heritage staff and alumni contributed to the president’s 1776 Commission and pivotal 1776 Commission Report, one of President Trump’s final actions in office.
• In February, the Wisconsin General Assembly took a cue from Heritage and passed a campus free speech bill that imposes mandatory disciplinary sanctions against students who violate free speech guidelines.

Welfare

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• In March 2020, the Trump administration issued a proposed regulation calling for a new and more accurate measure of poverty, consistent with Heritage’s long-standing recommendations.
• Congress and the Trump administration adopted Heritage’s policy prescription that welfare relief during the COVID-19 pandemic be targeted and temporary.

The architects of America’s future are among us today. They’re the rising leaders who took part in The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program in record numbers in 2020. Thanks to the ardent support of our members, our premier training and education program for young people grew larger and more effective, even while facing a worldwide pandemic.

From Interns to The Academy

In the spring of 2020, as internships and fellowship programs across the country shut down, we found a way to continue to build and educate the conservative movement.

Although we had to send our spring interns home early and cancel our summer intern program, we launched a new program that kept everyone engaged with Heritage: The Academy. The online Academy allowed us to continue hosting interns throughout 2020 and inspire and educate other future leaders.

The Academy is an online learning program open to people of all ages who are interested in intellectual formation and conservative principles. Whereas we can accept only 60 or so interns in our traditional intern program, The Academy allowed us to reach some 400 people, the vast majority of whom were college students, graduate students, high schoolers, Heritage interns, and young professionals.

Because the online Academy did not require travel to Washington, D.C., or as much of a time commitment, it gave young people who were on the fence about conservatism a chance to test drive our ideas.

This meant that our Academy fellows were more diverse ideologically: 44 identified as moderate, 29 as libertarian, 14 as liberals, and—amazingly—three socialists even expressed interest in the program.

Our results are impressive. Many of our Academy fellows changed their positions after involvement in the program’s lectures and discussion groups, delving into policy, history, economics, and political thought.

In exit surveys, 95 percent of fellows said that they would consider pursuing a career in the conservative movement.

Moreover, 99 percent said they were committed to “building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.”

Hands-on Experience

Interns and Academy fellows worked directly with our experts to develop everything from speeches to Daily Signal articles. But there’s no better example of hands-on learning than the Academy’s Capstone Projects. Fellows researched and developed actionable, innovative solutions to current policy challenges of their choosing.

Our best Capstone Projects of 2020 included:

• Recommendations for improving rapid DNA testing on the U.S. southern border, aimed at preventing sex trafficking and human smuggling.
• Solutions to combat public schools’ indoctrination of children with leftist ideals on gender identity, sexuality, and history—and an alternative curriculum based on human dignity, virtue, and biological truth.
• Recommendations for American universities to combat China’s use of Chinese students studying in the U.S. to illicitly gather U.S. intellectual property.
• A plan for a new think tank that monitors the state of religious liberty in the U.S. and trains religious leaders and community leaders to defend their rights.

Darius Franklin (left) and Abigail Klare (right) were among the Academy fellows who participated in the 2020 President’s Club Meeting.

Broadening the Movement

In 2020, our work to expand the conservative movement and reach new audiences resulted in a strong uptick in the number of participants from minority-serving institutions: Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Asian American- and Pacific Islander-serving institutions, and Hispanic-serving institutions.

We made connections with 85 individuals at 65 different minority-serving institutions, where we promoted Heritage through career fairs, campus talks, mailings, and campus liaisons. Seventy-eight of those connections resulted in applications to The Academy.

We made sure The Heritage Foundation was known on every campus. In 2020, we reached 46,000 students via:

• 13 career fairs
• 19 webinars
• 6 conferences
• 15 student briefings
• 5 alumni “reunions”

In 2020, we placed a special emphasis on reaching college- and high school-aged students with the truth about America’s founding. Heritage historians and scholars conducted more than 100 lectures and policy briefings at premier colleges and universities.

We’re also making impressive inroads among professors and academics. In 2020, our Scholars Working Group of 25 conservative professors and academics supported one another in defense of academic freedom on campus. We forged new relationships with intellectual elites at Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.

Meet Our Alumni

What do D.C. Circuit Court Judge Neomi Rao, the Federalist Society’s Peter Redpath, and radio host Vince Coglianese have in common?

They’re all former Heritage interns. More and more, the Young Leaders Program serves as a starting line for influential conservatives.

In 2020, our alumni network grew to more than 5,000. You can find 1,147 of these alumni, and see what they’re doing now, on The Heritage Foundation Official Intern Alumni Network on LinkedIn.com.

My internship was foundational for me in sorting out my career path post-graduation. I didn’t know where I would end up in the conservative movement, but I knew I wanted to be engaged in the fight.

Here’s an update on some of our alumni.

Vince Coglianese, host of WMAL’s popular radio show “Mornings on the Mall” and Daily Caller editorial director, received Heritage’s Robin and Jocelyn Martin Distinguished Intern Alumni Award in 2020. The award recognizes former Heritage interns who have gone on to successful careers in government, academia, public policy, or the private sector.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, an intern in 1986 who is now the president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, celebrated the new constitutionalist majority on the Supreme Court.

Peter Redpath, who interned in 1998, now leads the Federalist Society’s student division and is educating young people on the Electoral College, constitutional originalism, and other important topics.

Neomi Rao, an intern in 1997, continues to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Julian Hoyos and Ivonne Mieles, from Heritage’s two 2020 Academy classes, co-founded a conservative policy think tank that promotes liberty-minded reforms in Colombia and Ecuador.

Eduardo Dibos, a 2020 Academy alumnus, now leads a chapter of the Leadership Institute in Peru, equipping young conservatives in his country to win elections and defeat the rising popularity of socialism.