This list of 25 young organizations that are revolutionizing public policy range from White House initiatives to local neighborhood launches. Despite their youth (five years or less), some organizations have become household names, either through their positive impacts or through political controversy. You may not have heard about other organizations listed here, but each one, all nonprofit organizations, has opened doors to debate, solutions to problems and/or awareness about political agendas.
American Freedom Agenda: Established in March 2007 by disaffected libertarian-oriented conservatives, the AFA wanted to restore “checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the executive branch” during the Bush administration.
Appropedia: This Web site is a collaborative effort in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development with a focus on appropriate technology. Created in 2007 by Lonny Grafman, Appropedia is increasingly being used to improve the pedagogy of global service learning.
Caesar Rodney Institute: Founded in 2008, CRI seeks to become Delaware’s preeminent non-partisan, free-market oriented think tank. DelawareSpends.com is a project of the Caesar Rodney Institute that allows Delawareans to view state payroll, state payments to vendors as well as the payroll and vendor payments for several counties.
Center for a New American Security: Building on the expertise and experience of its staff and advisers, CNAS engages policymakers, experts and the public with innovative research, ideas and analysis to shape and elevate the national security debate. CNAS was established in February 2007 as an independent and nonpartisan research institution.
Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information: This multi-disciplinary research center located at the University of Maryland, was inaugurated in 2008. CASCI’s goals are to understand and transform community interactions through harnessing the power of novel technologies to support the needs of real and virtual communities and social networks.
Climate Strategies Watch: CSW describes itself as dedicated to “exposing stealth environmental advocacy by the Center for Climate Strategies and scrutinizing global warming policy in the States.” The Heartland Institute, which sponsors this organization, opposes “junk science and the use of scare tactics in the areas of environmental protection and public health.”
Foreign Policy Initiative: Founded in 2009, FPI claims non-partisanship and is committed to response to foreign policy challenges facing the U.S., such as “rising and resurgent powers, including China and Russia,” “other autocracies that violate the rights of their citizens” and etc.
Foundation for Excellence in Education: The Foundation was founded in Tallahassee, Florida in 2007 by then Governor Jeb Bush. The school’s co-founder was T. Williard Fair, a well-known local black activist and head of the Greater Miami Urban League. Since its inception, the Institute has claimed to remain independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan.
Global Financial Integrity: GFI launched in 2006, and has urged the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to implement new safeguards that will greatly improve transparency and cooperation in the global financial system.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is a non-profit, non-partisan economic policy think tank formed in March, 2006 and based in Washington, DC. ITIF focuses on the roles innovation and technology play in our economic well being and quality of life. Top officials in the Obama Administration, key Members of Congress, elected officials and public policy experts across the country seek out ITIF’s ideas for bolstering U.S. competitiveness and prosperity.
Innovation, Development and Employment Alliance: IDEA is a business coalition launched in 2009, and it is aimed at securing intellectual property rights areas including environmentally sound technology, healthcare and renewable energy. Supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, members include General Electric, Microsoft and Sunrise Solar.
Institute for International Economic Policy: George Washington University chartered IIEP in 2007, and current research includes climate change adaptation in developing countries, the global financial crisis and prospects for recovery, economics of ultra-poverty, China-US economic relations, herd behavior in financial markets, and the free trade/fair trade debate.
Join the Impact: JTI, founded in 2008 with the California passage of Proposition 8, is a grassroots and netroots organization geared at gaining full equality for the LGBTQI community through outreach, education, and demonstration. This group garnered enough net-roots activism to lead to a 300-city international protest of Proposition 8 on November 15th, 2008.
LGBT Equality Caucus: Congress members strongly committed to achieving the full enjoyment of human rights for LGBT people in the U.S. and around the world created this caucus in 2008. Their focus is the extension of equal rights, elimination of hate-motivated violence, and improved health and well being for all.
Lincoln Square Institute: The Institute was founded in 2006 by a group of public policy scholars who seek to broaden the public policy debate. The Lincoln Square Institute publishes the online “Campaign Power Rating 2008.” The report was featured on numerous Sunday morning talk programs.
National Policy Institute: Founded in 2007, NPI describes itself as the right’s answer to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its chairman, Louis R. Andrews, voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential Election in order, he said, to help destroy the Republican Party so that it can be reborn into a party that will support the “interests of white people.”
National Security Network: Founded in 2006, NSN focuses on international relations, global affairs and national security. This group rejects “reject the Bush Administration’s reckless, incompetent, and short-sighted policies that have emboldened our enemies, tarnished our moral standing, overstretched our military, and endangered our people.”
Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues: Created by Executive Order 13521 in 2009, this committee succeeds the disbanded President’s Council on Bioethics. The Commission’s goal is to identify and promote policies and practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery, and technological innovation are conducted ethically and to report directly to President Obama.
Sam Adams Alliance: Sam Adams Alliance was founded in 2006 to inspire and cultivate citizen activism. Initially, the organization provided new media and blogger training to free-market activists. Though the organization is often referred to as conservative or libertarian, it claims to not affiliate with any particular political ideology.
Science and Public Policy Institute: Prior to founding SPPI in approximately mid-2007, Robert Ferguson was the Executive Director of the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP), a project of the corporate-funded group, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute (founded in 1996 by ex-Republican Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming). SPPI funded a film, Apocalypse? No! to counter the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
The Alliance for Climate Protection: Founded in 2006 by Al Gore, the Alliance is guided by a bi-partisan board. In April 2008, ACP launched a $300 million marketing campaign (spent over three years). O’Dwyer’s reported, “Interpublic’s Martin Agency has developed ads for the campaign with the Alliance featuring unlikely political pairings like Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, and Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton.”
The Center for Internet and Society Fair Use Project: The Stanford Center for Internet and Society’s “Fair Use Project” (“the FUP”) was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of “fair use” in order to enhance creative freedom. It has been involved in several notable cases over the past five years.
The Wheatley Institution: Jack Wheatley organized this Brigham Young University organization in 2007. Wheatley had previously been on the board of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution (dedicated to research in domestic policy and international affairs in a conservative and/or libertarian vein) and desires to have the new BYU institution fulfill somewhat the same roles.
White House Office of Urban Affairs: The White House Office of Urban Affairs is an office within the White House Office, established by Executive Order 13503 issued by President Obama in 2009, the purpose of the office is to provide leadership for and coordinate the development of the policy agenda for urban America across executive departments and agencies.
World Wide Web Foundation: The World Wide Web Foundation, launched in November 2009, is an organization dedicated to the improvement and availability of the World Wide Web. The mission of the organization is “to advance One Web that is free and open,” “to expand the Web’s capability and robustness” and “to extend the Web’s benefits to all people on the planet.”
