HEARTLAND INSTITUTE

The Heartland Institute is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission since 1984 has been to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Heartland is dedicated to protecting the liberty of individuals and promoting more economic opportunity for all Americans. Heartland believes this is best accomplished by advocating for a smaller, less-intrusive federal government, and moving policy-making to more-accountable state and local governments.

The Heartland Institute's main strategy for accomplishing its foundational mission is to educate legislators and the public about free-market principles and the virtues of smaller government and greater liberty.

Heartland focuses primarily on educating state elected officials through the production and distribution of monthly newspapers covering key domestic policy areas from a free-market perspective. The newspapers cover health care, education, budgets and taxes, and environment and energy. They present free-market solutions that have been implemented successfully in several states and new ideas to increase individual liberty, responsible governance, and economic vitality. No other national free-market advocacy group identifies state and local officials as its primary audience.

Heartland also produces a steady stream of podcasts, blog posts, videos, op-eds, letters to the editor, policy studies, and other communications to educate elected officials, the public, and the media about the principles of free-market capitalism.

Our effective education strategy consists of overcoming “rational ignorance," creating our own publications, using new media to target younger audiences, recognizing and overcoming media bias, creating compelling narratives, encouraging political engagement, and overcoming the public's persuasive ignorance of economics.

Core assets: Heartland has a full-time staff of 39 people who produce and manage the organization's educational materials and outreach to elected officials, the public, the press, and allies in the free-market movement. Heartland also leverages the knowledge of some 500 policy advisors, who help produce, review, and promote the organization's educational products.

Original research: Every year, Heartland produces books, Policy Studies, Policy Briefs, Research & Commentary collections, and booklets on subjects such as public pension reform; taxes on Internet sales, wireless telephones, and tobacco products; entitlement reform at the federal and state levels; energy policy; increased parental choice in public education; health care reform, and many other important issues.

Communications: We gain exposure for our ideas through the mainstream media by writing and submitting news releases, op-eds, letters to the editor, and feature stories; and we go around the mainstream media by using online communication, generating almost 2.4 million page views on our 12 websites and blogs in 2019. Our Facebook page registered more than 100,000 fans and more than 3 million YouTube views in 2019.

Digital and online projects: Heartland generated more than 2.4 million page views on its Web sites and blogs in 2019. Its Facebook page has more than 100,000 fans, and its posts advocating free markets and individual liberty reach more than 13.6 million people each week. The “Heartland Daily Podcast" is listened to or downloaded some 80,000 times every month.

Government relations: We work directly with national and state elected officials to educate them about market-based alternatives. Our government relations staff made 949,379 contacts with government officials, including 2,636 face-to-face contacts. Virtually all these contacts are educational; we almost never engage in lobbying. Additionally, Heartland boasts 226 Legislative Forum Members (LFM) or state and national legislators who pay dues to receive priority access to analysis, testimony, and research necessary to achieve their legislative goals. Legislative members also get exclusive benefits not available to other legislators.

In 2019, Heartland produced and distributed 335 policy documents, including 274 Research & Commentaries, Policy Tip Sheets and FAQ’s, and 35 written testimonies.

We contacted elected officials nearly one million times in 2019. Of those one million contacts, 9,091 were personal contacts, and of those, more than 2,636 were face-to-face. Virtually all of these contacts were educational and nonpartisan. Time and expenditures devoted to lobbying are de minimis and in strict accordance with our 501(c)(3) status.

Heartland affiliated experts testified in 18 states a total of 11 times last year. This included 11 times on education issues, nine times on budget and tax issues, eight times on energy and environment issues, and once on health care issues.

In 2019 Heartland appeared in print, online, TV, and radio media 4,849 times, including 1,173 times in printed publications reaching a paid circulation of 185 million people. We hosted 12 websites generating 2.4 million page views, our podcasts were downloaded 5 million times, and our YouTube videos were viewed 2.6 million times. We have more than 101,000 Facebook fans, over 30,000 YouTube subscribers, & 59,000 twitter followers.