Outlet profile

Heritage Foundation

U.S. right (conservative, populist-nationalist)

Owned byIndependent nonprofit (501(c)(3)) with no owner. A board of trustees governs it, and Kevin Roberts has been president since late 2021.

FundingMostly tax-deductible donations from individuals, foundations and corporations, plus some publication and event revenue. Its annual budget is roughly $100 million. It has historically drawn on large conservative donors and foundations. Its donor list is not fully public.

On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner and Joseph Coors founded Heritage in 1973. It became influential in the Reagan era, when its 'Mandate for Leadership' policy blueprint guided the incoming administration. Over the decades it promoted free-market economics, a strong military, and social conservatism. Kevin Roberts became president in 2021 and moved the group toward a more populist, nationalist stance that is closely tied to Donald Trump's movement. Heritage led Project 2025, a roughly 900-page policy blueprint for a second Trump term, published in 2023. Trump distanced himself from it during the 2024 campaign, but many of its authors later joined his administration. Roberts has said Heritage aims to 'institutionalize Trumpism', and reports in 2026 said that more than 1,000 of the project's roughly 1,900 recommendations had been implemented. In late 2025, Roberts defended Tucker Carlson after Carlson interviewed white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Staff, board members and legal and economic scholars left in response, and some joined Mike Pence's Advancing American Freedom. Critics on the left call Heritage's output advocacy with a partisan slant. Some conservative critics say it has drifted toward big-government populism and tolerated antisemitism, and Roberts and his allies reject those charges.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-10-27; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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