The Naval Institute Foundation Incorporated

Since their inception in 1879, Naval Institute essay contests have given voice to daring, innovative thought. Historically, these essay contests have stimulated contributions from those who might never have thought of themselves as writers, but soon became known as the most progressive thinkers in the naval service—long before “innovation” became the buzzword it is today. These contests are central to achieving the Institute’s education mission, because they engender timely, thought-provoking ideas that spur discussion of emerging issues not only in Naval Institute media, but also in other leading defense and national security forums.

The Naval Institute is the independent thought leader for the naval services with a widely recognized brand. It plays a major role in debates on issues pertinent to the Sea Services. Naval Institute conferences bring together preeminent military and civilian leaders, historians, and policymakers to discuss the challenges to the naval services, and to the Nation, at this critical moment in U.S. history.
By encouraging open dialogue and debate between subject-matter experts and attendees, the Naval Institute advances the Sea Services’ professionalism while developing its professionals. Conferences enable face-to-face dialogue, which is then continued through the Naval Institute’s print and online media, allowing for sustained, widespread discussion.
Conferences draw people in … and draw people out. Many a naval professional has been moved by Institute conference presentations to speak out, to write for publication, and, ultimately, to emerge as one of the profession’s true thought leaders.
The Naval Institute is undertaking new initiatives to increase the reach, relevance, and impact of its conference offerings: These initiatives will provide more engagement opportunities for professionals to interact and collaborate, strengthen their networks, learn from one another, and tackle real-world problems … address challenge questions and produce solutions … and engage younger audiences, enlisted professionals, and international audiences. The Naval Institute will also improve its headquarters capacity for hosting face-to-face meetings.
The Naval Institute currently presents 15 conferences and events per year, up from four per year not long ago. They include the History Conference at the Naval Academy, the Coast Guard Academy Conference, Defense Forum Washington, the Naval Institute Annual Meeting, the WEST Conference & Exposition in San Diego in partnership with AFCEA, and the Maritime Security Dialogue Series in partnership with the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

Spun off from the Columbia University program in 1969, the Naval Institute Oral History Program has amassed an unrivaled body of in-depth personal narratives of crucial naval events as experienced by the great leaders of the past century. These recollections have been painstakingly researched, recorded, transcribed, annotated, indexed, and published for use by historians, students, veterans, and documentary filmmakers. More than 270 oral histories have been completed, and dozens more are on deck. All supply rich detail often lost in official histories, creating an intimate, personal narrative of naval events and personalities. As such, they immediately become invaluable primary source materials for historians, as well as for Naval Academy and NROTC midshipmen and Coast Guard Academy cadets. These histories are cited in dozens of influential works of military history each year. Over the past five years, forty-five works of military history—some of them New York Times bestsellers and all of them influential in the field—have cited Naval Institute oral histories in their bibliographies.
Moving forward, the Naval Institute will aggressively identify, conduct, and publish fresh oral histories in a timely fashion, working from an evolving list of prospects. These new candidates will include strategic and operational leaders such as recent Chiefs of Naval Operations and carrier battle-group commanders, as well as naval strategists and chief technologists. The program will also capture the recollections of heroes and pacesetters such as Medal of Honor recipients and astronauts.
Thanks to the generosity of past donors, the program’s entire collection of audiotaped interviews has been digitized. Henceforth, all Naval Institute oral histories will be born digital, and key portions of the histories will be videotaped. Future historians and documentary filmmakers will thus be able to hear and watch these historic figures as they tell their most compelling stories. The oral histories will also be made available online.

A founding member of the Association of American University Presses, the book-publishing arm of the Naval Institute was launched in 1898 with basic guides to naval practices. Now, more than a century later, Naval Institute Press titles address such diverse subjects as how-to books on boating and navigation, battle histories, biographies, ship and aircraft guides, and novels, including the bestsellers The Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy) and Flight of the Intruder (Stephen Coonts). The Press publishes approximately 80 new titles a year and currently has more than 800 books in print—500 of which are also available as eBooks.
The way ahead. The Naval Institute Press now proposes to capitalize on major changes going on in the publishing world, ensuring that worthy books of military history find a reputable publisher and that many more young historians are encouraged to write and publish. We will accomplish these ends through five steps:
1. Enable author advances
2. Offer author prizes and awards
3. Underwrite indexing costs
4. Provide price subventions
5. Special major projects, print and digital.

For 145 years, the Naval Institute has fostered challenging debate and delivered what is hands-down the world’s most vigorous independent forum on defense and security issues. Military readers consistently rank Proceedings as “Most Credible,” “Most Relevant,” “Most Important,” and as a “Must Read” among all military journals. Additionally, Proceedings commands great respect among mainstream media. Virtually every major news organization quoted or linked to Proceedings as its authoritative source, doing so more than 200,000 times in 2015.
As part of its new strategic plan, the Naval Institute intends to build on these great strengths. It will do so by vigorously seeking out and teeing up strategic issues affecting America’s three sea services, identifying the right questions, and engaging with sea service leaders to encourage their people to write and speak out on these questions. Establishing The Proceedings Trust will better enable the Institute to protect the magazine’s highly prized reputation for editorial independence, make Proceedings content more understandable and visually appealing, become less dependent on defense-contractor advertising, and build a more resilient, multi-source funding structure.
The Proceedings Trust provides the opportunity for donors who care deeply about the Naval Institute’s historic Open Forum to help secure Proceedings’ present and future. Supporters of The Proceedings Trust will provide direct philanthropic support to the ongoing needs of the magazine and to the strategic actions that are planned for its continued success.

Disclaimer: The Proceedings Trust is not a trust in the legal or investment sense. Rather, it is an ongoing restricted funding opportunity offered to donors of the Naval Institute.

Naval History is the only publication whose core mission is to tell the story of the three Sea Services: the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. In doing so, the magazine relies on penetrating analyses by leading historians, gripping battle and eyewitness accounts, and engaging photographs, artwork, maps, timelines, and other graphics. The magazine is available in an interactive, digital version, which includes special bonus features.
Naval History Magazine dominates the subject worldwide because it stands alone and occupies a niche, with its American Sea Services focus, that no other magazine has occupied for many, many years. Naval History is a bridge between the academic world and popular naval history, with authoritative content supported by citations or named sources. Google the subject of “Naval History Magazines” and Naval History Magazine occupies the very top six listings before the next entry on the subject, with the seventh entry belonging to the Naval Institute’s Naval History Blog. Naval History Magazine by far dominates and wins the Internet search-engine race. Three of the nation’s most trusted figures have considered Naval History Magazine their authoritative source:
“Naval History is a treasure chest . . . of our military and seagoing heritage.”
—Tom Brokaw, longtime anchor, NBC Nightly News, and bestselling author
“Naval History is to be admired. I was proud to be included . . .”
—Walter Cronkite, longtime anchor, CBS Evening News, and bestselling author
“One of the best magazines in the country . . . fundamental to improving
the teaching and the understanding of American history . . .”
—David McCullough, host of The American Experience and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
The Naval History Trust provides donors who care deeply about this work with the opportunity to help secure Naval History’s present and future and, in this way, preserve and disseminate Sea Service history. Supporters of The Naval History Trust provide direct philanthropic support to the ongoing needs of the magazine and to the strategic actions that are planned for its continued success. These actions include greater use of Navy and Marine photographic, film, and textual records at the National Archives, more graphics and maps throughout the year, commissioned artwork to illustrate articles more richly, and more special gatefold packages.

Disclaimer: The Naval History Trust is not a trust in the legal or investment sense. Rather, it is an ongoing restricted funding opportunity offered to donors of the Naval Institute.

In 2012 the Naval Institute launched USNI News. The vision? An independent news and analysis service focused on maritime and global security issues written by knowledgeable journalists and analysts who not only understand the densely interconnected world of navies and maritime commerce, but who can also explain it to the general public.

Five years later, USNI News has become a leader in naval news both domestically and internationally, providing much-needed clarity to a media landscape often confused by all things maritime. Operating with a modest budget, USNI News has quickly emerged as a leading source for breaking news. In 2016, USNI News extended its reach immensely:

• Generating 15.33 billion media impressions, up from 8.79 billion in 2015.
• Attracting slightly fewer than 11 million distinct pages views.
• Accruing citing’s by major news outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters, Fox, CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, USA Today, BBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR and the Drudge Report.

Why USNI News matters. Trade on the world’s oceans is set to double by 2030. Yet Western navies patrolling these waters are getting smaller. China and Russia, meanwhile, rapidly expand their fleets’ power, and emerging nations like India are also developing more capable navies. The U.S. faces shrinking defense budgets even as its navy shoulders a growing list of responsibilities across the globe.

The tensions and dynamics of the international maritime commons are crucial to the U.S. way of conducting business and ensuring the peace. Yet it’s a subject barely understood by most Americans. It has been a long time since the general interest press — or even the military press —paid informed attention to the naval domain. Given shrinking newsrooms around the world, there’s precious little time to devote to the dynamics of the sea. USNI News exists to fill this gap, picking up the slack left by the trade and general interest reporter and making sure such stories get told … and heard.

Not only is USNI News reports on naval and maritime news, they are also performing investigative journalism. In April of 2016, USNI News editor, Sam Lagrone, broke the spy story of U.S. naval flight officer LCDR Edward Lin accused of giving U.S. secrets to China. USNI News was cited in almost every major English language news publication.

In December 2016, twenty minutes after China captured the Navy’s submersible drone, Sam had confirmation of the type of submersible and wrote the USNI News article from a parking lot of a movie theater complete with links to the Admiral-in-charge-of-the-drone-program’s recent brief/review of the submersibles program.

Looking to capitalize on this success, the Naval Institute seeks investment to deliver more up-to-the-minute stories, more in-depth investigative work, more insider documents, more deep-dive data analytics, more interactive maps and charts, and richer multimedia. We will also expand the reach of USNI News, especially to the general public and international audiences.

One of the Naval Institute’s top priorities is to engage young naval personnel and help them advance as leaders of the naval profession. We need officers who can think critically, write persuasively, and win arguments on the merits. By exposing current midshipmen and cadets to the Naval Institute and Proceedings Magazine early in their naval careers and encouraging them to read, think, speak, and write, the Institute prepares junior officers to address the next challenges to global security. The Naval Institute is also working with the Sea Services to offer the same benefits to senior enlisted professionals.
We think the nexus of alma mater, Navy, and Naval Institute is critically important. By sponsoring a unit, the alumni donor forges a connection both professionally and academically with the next generation of naval leaders. This national network of sponsors includes distinguished officers in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. The Naval Institute has performed due diligence with the Department of the Navy to ensure that these gratis memberships stay within the gift guidelines of what military personnel may accept.
Sponsored memberships give each midshipman/cadet access to:
• Proceedings Magazine, accessible through print, online, or mobile formats.
• Primary source material for academic research, including photographs, back issues of
Proceedings, oral histories, and other historical documents not available elsewhere.
• Deep discounts on Naval Institute Press books and Naval History Magazine.
“I have been benefitting from your sponsorship for two years now, and have read every copy of Proceedings published in that time,” says one sponsored membership recipient. “I have benefitted greatly from this exposure, would like to write for [Proceedings] soon, and cannot express how much I appreciate this opportunity.”

Editorial Chairs
The Naval Institute has built strong leadership positions in three arenas: current naval issues, naval history, and naval professional books. Sustaining these positions of strength will always rely on the discerning intelligence of experienced editors. To ensure that this work is guided in perpetuity by accomplished professionals, the Naval Institute seeks to fund three named editorial chairs … one chair for the editor of Proceedings Magazine … a second chair for the editor of Naval History Magazine … and a third chair for the professional books editor of the Naval Institute Press.
Judging from the experience of other leading institutions, such named chairs will tend to raise the sights and improve the performance of the entire editorial team, even as they elicit contributions from a wider circle of naval professionals, policy analysts, and historians.