131 Million. This is not a population statistic, nor is it the answer to some clever math problem. It’s the number of people you reached through Acton over the past year.
Your support made possible a wide range of conferences, publications, media products, television interviews, and social media outreach that impacted leaders around the globe. For this, we are truly grateful.
As you know, Acton has been promoting liberty and virtue for 25 years now. Alumni of our programs and users of our products include heads of state, members of the U.S. House, Fortune 500 business executives, influential clergy, and professors and students from preeminent universities and seminaries. Many of these individuals have gone on to promote Acton insights in their own realms of influence and authority.
But you did. Over the years, you’ve supported us generously with your prayers, encouragement, and resources. That generosity has made us one of the most unique and respected organizations in the free-market movement.
As you read this Founders’ Report – and all of them, for that matter – we hope you will see yourself not as a passive supporter, but as an active collaborator. Over the last 25 years, your support has brought us to this place. And of that, you ought to be proud.
With gratitude,
Kris Mauren
Annual Dinner Information
131 Million. This is not a population statistic, nor is it the answer to some clever math problem. It’s the number of people you reached through Acton over the past year.
Your support made possible a wide range of conferences, publications, media products, television interviews, and social media outreach that impacted leaders around the globe. For this, we are truly grateful.
As you know, Acton has been promoting liberty and virtue for 25 years now. Alumni of our programs and users of our products include heads of state, members of the U.S. House, Fortune 500 business executives, influential clergy, and professors and students from preeminent universities and seminaries. Many of these individuals have gone on to promote Acton insights in their own realms of influence and authority.
But you did. Over the years, you’ve supported us generously with your prayers, encouragement, and resources. That generosity has made us one of the most unique and respected organizations in the free-market movement.
As you read this Founders’ Report – and all of them, for that matter – we hope you will see yourself not as a passive supporter, but as an active collaborator. Over the last 25 years, your support has brought us to this place. And of that, you ought to be proud.
With gratitude,
Kris Mauren
Poverty Cure Information
Help us move people beyond their good intentions. Help us share a vision of the material poor as full of creative capacity, dignity, and potential. Only then will we see true, human flourishing in the poorest corners of the earth.
PovertyCure, being an initiative of the Acton Institute, seeks to connect good intentions with sounds economics. So often the efforts of well-meaning people and organizations to address poverty do more harm than good. Our goal is to equip these same people and organizations with resources that promote satisfying and fruitful work, within the context of a free and virtuous society, as the best, and most sustainable, pathway out of poverty.
Your donations will help us reach additional schools, churches, nonprofits, and other organizations with this message. Through screenings of the PovertyCure Video Series, simple training sessions with organizations, and conferences with influential nonprofit leaders, we hope more and more people will move away from aid and embrace enterprise in their fight against material poverty.
Listen to Acton content on the go by downloading the Radio Free Acton podcast!
Christians know firsthand that churches and places of worship promote personal, economic, and civic flourishing. Congress recently heard expert testimony describing the full extent of how religion promotes happiness, helps the poor find work, and creates healthy communities every day of the week.
These facts came to light during testimony before the Congressional Joint Economic Committee on “expanding opportunity by strengthening families, communities, and civil society” on April 30.
People who are highly social and civically engaged are the most likely to say government should “increase the equality of opportunity for people to get ahead if they want to,” according to Ryan Streeter, the director of domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). They are also twice as likely to say they live in “excellent” communities.
However, they do not wait to receive a government directive before pitching in to improve their hometown, in micro- or macrocosm.
Streeter told Congress that membership in civic groups, like churches, helps the poorest people to find work and improve their economic prospects:
[I]f we fail to recognize the important role that networks play at the local and regional levels in people’s upward mobility prospects, our national debates about these former types of policy will achieve limited impact. Our workforce development systems at the state and local levels, for starters, could benefit greatly from a renewed focus on how networks and relationships at the community level could help low-income aspiring workers fare far better in the labor market than they currently are.
He added that religion correlates with civic engagement:
We cannot close out a discussion about civic and social groups without looking at the important role of religion. On average, 29 percent of highly civic people say religion is central to their lives, compared with 15 percent of civically unengaged people. In every civic group (i.e., those with low, moderate, and high social scores) a greater share of people say religion is central to their lives than say “not important.” Exactly the opposite is the case for people who are not civically engaged, in which case about twice the share of respondents say religion is unimportant than rather than central to their lives. America’s tradition of civic engagement continues to have strong religious underpinnings.
Having more people engaged in solving national problems in their own backyard is good for a number of reasons beyond the immediate problem being solved. Civic-minded Americans have more of almost everything we need more of in our country, so producing more of them and basing our policy decisions on this goal is critical.
The Acton Institute exists “to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.” Increasingly, Congressional and national leaders are understanding how vital our mission is.
You can watch the full hearing below. Streeter’s testimony begins at approximately 16:39:
You can also read a transcript of Streeter’s testimony here.
Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as Executive Editor of the Acton Institute (2016-2021), editing Religion & Liberty, the Powerblog, and its transatlantic website. He has extensively researched the Alt-Right. Previously, he worked for LifeSiteNews and FrontPageMag.com, where he wrote three books including Party of Defeat (with David Horowitz, 2008). His work has appeared at DailyWire.com, National Review, The American Spectator, The Guardian, Daily Caller, National Catholic Register, Spectator USA, FEE Online, RealClear Policy, The Blaze, The Stream, American Greatness, Aleteia, Providence Magazine, Charisma, Jewish World Review, Human Events, Intellectual Takeout, CatholicVote.org, Issues & Insights, The Conservative, Rare.us, and The American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. His views are his own.
