Heritage Foundation

The Her­itage Foun­da­tion, found­ed on Feb­ru­ary 16, 1973 by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feul­ner, and Joseph Coors, ini­tial­ly emerged as a con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­cy insti­tute empha­siz­ing free-mar­ket eco­nom­ics, lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment, and a strong nation­al defense. It rose to promi­nence with its first Man­date for Lead­er­ship in 1981—a blue­print cred­it­ed with influ­enc­ing the Rea­gan administration’s agen­da. Through­out the 1980s and 1990s, the orga­ni­za­tion main­tained a rel­a­tive­ly tra­di­tion­al, con­ser­v­a­tive pos­ture, focus­ing on wel­fare reform, tax cuts, and dereg­u­la­tion. How­ev­er, in the post-2016 polit­i­cal land­scape, Her­itage piv­ot­ed sharply toward nation­al con­ser­vatism, shed­ding its pri­or empha­sis on lib­er­tar­i­an eco­nom­ics for a pop­ulist agen­da under­scor­ing nation­al iden­ti­ty, immi­gra­tion restric­tion, social con­ser­vatism, and strong exec­u­tive pow­er. Under pres­i­dent Kevin Roberts, this shift cul­mi­nat­ed in Project 2025, launched in 2022—a sprawl­ing, more than 900-page “Man­date for Lead­er­ship 2025: The Con­ser­v­a­tive Promise,” com­plete with per­son­nel data­bas­es, train­ing mod­ules, agency play­books, and poli­cies aimed at remak­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment under new nation­al­ist pri­or­i­ties. This tran­si­tion marks Heritage’s evo­lu­tion from a prag­mat­ic pol­i­cy shop into the insti­tu­tion­al core of today’s nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment. In June 2025, the Her­itage Foun­da­tion released an astound­ing report call­ing for the Trump admin­is­tra­tion to estab­lish a glob­al alliance of con­ser­v­a­tive, nation­al­ist, and pop­ulist move­ments to counter the transna­tion­al Left­’s insti­tu­tion­al dom­i­nance, and pre­cise­ly align­ing with the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report’s (GIOR) descrip­tion of the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA).

Ref­er­ences:

• Her­itage Foun­da­tion | Def­i­n­i­tion, His­to­ry, & Facts | Britannica

• Man­date for Leadership

• Project 2025

• What is Project 2025? What to know about the con­ser­v­a­tive blue­print for a sec­ond Trump administration

• Pol­i­tics Hun­dreds of pro­pos­als in Project 2025 match Trump’s policies

• Her­itage Foun­da­tion: How a Far-Right Think Tank Gained So Much Influ­ence Over U.S. Politics