Charles Koch Foundation Partner Impact Update (2022)

“There are millions being left behind,” Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) Executive Director Ryan Stowers told an interviewer earlier this year.  Stowers was discussing postsecondary education specifically, but that statement rings true for all of CKF’s focus areas. A top down health care system has not improved well-being or access to care, for example, and divisive rhetoric has created … Continued

NYU’s Policing Project to work with 5 cities to improve public safety

Years of tough on crime policies have harmed families and neighborhoods without making them safer. To understand how government can better serve communities, New York University School of Law’s Policing Project has launched Reimagining Public Safety (RPS), an initiative to learn from and support jurisdictions redesigning their public safety systems.  An important component of RPS is to … Continued

Sam Staley: Why self-actualization is important for students, and society

Sam Staley is director of Florida State University’s (FSU) DeVoe L. Moore Center, an interdisciplinary, applied public policy research and teaching center in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy that examines how the private sector can address pressing local concerns. In addition to running the center, Staley teaches upper level undergraduate and professional masters … Continued

Mutual Benefit Economics: How Markets are Mutually Beneficial

by Daniel J. Smith In 2011, I was flying back and forth between Joplin, Mo. and Tuscaloosa, Ala. following those cities’ devastating tornadoes. I was conducting field research to determine how communities can better prepare and respond to future disasters. I kept hearing community leaders discuss the problems that in-kind donations like clothing, shoes, and other … Continued

Discoveries are not Planned: Friedrich Hayek on Bottom-Up Progress

By Bruce Caldwell Three thinkers who have written about the ideas that are most likely to spur bottom up improvement in peoples’ everyday lives are Friedrich Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat, and Adam Smith.  What they wrote so long ago still resonates today, but for our purposes let’s concentrate mostly on one. The social theorist and Nobel laureate … Continued

What We’re Reading: Scholars Explore How Americans’ Perceptions of Political Polarization Impact Behavior

Americans are worried about polarization and what it means for our friendships, families, and, certainly, our society. For people to come together to solve pressing challenges, we need to trust each other.  Is that coming together possible in our current moment? From what we’re reading, the answer is yes. We think we’re more divided than we actually are.  … Continued