Liberty Fund


Liberty Fund, Inc. is an American libertarian-leaning nonprofit foundation headquartered in Indianapolis, founded by Pierre F. Goodrich. Through publishing, conferences, and educational resources, the operating mandate of the Liberty Fund was set forth in an unpublished memo written by Goodrich "to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals".

History

Liberty Fund was founded by Pierre F. Goodrich in 1960. In 1997 it received an $80 million donation from Goodrich's wife, Enid, increasing its assets to over $300 million.
In November 2015, it was announced that the Liberty Fund was building a $22 million headquarters in Carmel, Indiana.

Projects

The foundation has published several books covering history, politics, philosophy, law, education, and economics. These include:
Besides its main website, the Liberty Fund also sponsors the following websites:
In his book The Assault on Reason, former U.S. Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore wrote that between 2002 and 2004, 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees. Gore suggests that such conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences "are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, antienvironmental, and activist decisions". Referring to what he calls the "Big Three"—the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, George Mason University's Law & Economics Center, and the Liberty Fund—Gore adds, "These groups are not providing unbiased judicial education. They are giving multithousand-dollar vacations to federal judges to promote their radical right-wing agenda at the expense of the public interest."
Liberty Fund has been cited by historian Donald T. Critchlow as one of the endowed conservative foundations which laid the way for the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1980.