| Aspen Institute | |
| Size: | 230px |
| Founder: | Walter Paepcke |
| Type: | Research institute, think tank |
| Headquarters: | 2300 N Street, NW, Suite 700 |
| Location: | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Leader Title: | President & CEO |
| Leader Name: | Daniel R. Porterfield |
| Revenue: | $160,402,073[1] |
| Revenue Year: | 2019 |
| Expenses: | $147,137,098 |
| Expenses Year: | 2019 |
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.[2] The institute is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It also has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, its original home.[3]
The Aspen Institute is largely funded by foundations such as the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, by seminar fees, and by individual donations.[4] Its board of trustees includes leaders from politics, government, business and academia who also contribute to its support. A report by the Center for International Policy's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative of the top 50 think tanks on the University of Pennsylvania's Global Go-To Think Tanks rating index found that during between 2014 and 2018 the Aspen Institute received the fifth-highest amount of funding from outside the United States compared to other think tanks, with a total of more than US$8 million from donors that originated primarily in Western democracies but also "sizeable donations from undemocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates."[5]
The institute was largely the creation of Walter Paepcke, a Chicago businessman who had become inspired by the Great Books program of Mortimer Adler at the University of Chicago.[6] In 1945, Paepcke visited Bauhaus artist and architect Herbert Bayer, AIA, who had designed and built a Bauhaus-inspired minimalist home outside the decaying former mining town of Aspen, in the Roaring Fork Valley. Paepcke and Bayer envisioned a place where artists, leaders, thinkers, and musicians could gather. Shortly thereafter, while passing through Aspen on a hunting expedition, oil industry maverick Robert O. Anderson (soon to be founder and CEO of Atlantic Richfield) met with Bayer and shared in Paepcke's and Bayer's vision. In 1949, Paepcke organized a 20-day international celebration for the 200th birthday of German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The celebration attracted over 2,000 attendees, including Albert Schweitzer, José Ortega y Gasset, Thornton Wilder, and Arthur Rubinstein.[7]
In 1949, Paepcke founded the Aspen Institute; and later the Aspen Music Festival and eventually (with Bayer and Anderson) the International Design Conference at Aspen (IDCA).[8] Paepcke sought a forum "where the human spirit can flourish", especially amid the whirlwind and chaos of modernization. He hoped that the institute could help business leaders recapture what he called "eternal verities": the values that guided them intellectually, ethically, and spiritually as they led their companies. Inspired by philosopher Mortimer Adler's Great Books seminar at the University of Chicago, which was later adopted by Encyclopædia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, Paepcke worked with Anderson to create the Aspen Institute Executive Seminar.[9] In 1951, the institute sponsored a national photography conference. During the 1960s and 1970s, the institute added organizations, programs, and conferences, including the Aspen Center for Physics, the Aspen Strategy Group, Communications and Society Program and other programs that concentrated on education, communications, justice, Asian thought, science, technology, the environment, and international affairs.
In 1979, through a donation by Corning Glass industrialist and philanthropist Arthur A. Houghton Jr., the institute acquired a 1,000-acre (4 km) campus on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, known today as the Wye River Conference Centers.[10]
In 1983, former United States Senator Dick Clark founded the Aspen Institute's Congressional program, which sought to educate members of Congress on foreign affairs issues.[11]
In 2005, it held the first Aspen Ideas Festival, featuring leading minds from around the world sharing and speaking on global issues. The institute, along with The Atlantic, hosts the festival annually. It has trained philanthropists such as Carrie Morgridge.[12] It has since added additional events such as the Aspen Ideas Health and Aspen Ideas Climate.[13] In 2023, the Aspen Ideas Climate event included Vice President Kamala Harris and famed singer Gloria Estefan.[14]
Since 2013,[15] the Aspen Institute together with U.S. magazine The Atlantic and Bloomberg Philanthropies has participated in organizing the annual CityLab event, a summit dedicated to develop strategies for the challenges of urbanization in today's cities.[16]
Walter Isaacson was the president and CEO of Aspen Institute from 2003 to June 2018. Isaacson announced in March 2017 that he would step down as president and CEO at the end of the year.[17] On November 30, 2017, Daniel Porterfield was announced as his successor. Porterfield succeeded Isaacson on June 1, 2018.[18]
In April 2020, the company received approximately $8 million in federally backed small business loans as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The company received scrutiny over this loan, which meant to protect small and private businesses. The Washington Post noted their large endowment and membership of billionaires made this problematic. Dele Olojede, a fellow at the institute, called it "contrary to the stated purpose of this institute", that "one of America’s most elite institutions thinks it is okay to take the money", going on to say "Those who purport to be values-based and public-spirited leaders cannot at the same time put self interest first, when there is so much human suffering and death".[19] The day after Olojede and the Washington Post highlighted the funding, Aspen Institute announced they would return it, stating "Upon listening to our communities and further reflection, we have made the decision to return the loan".[20]
In 2023, Simon Godwin was named Aspen Institute's Harman/Eisner artist in residence. Godwin is the artistic director for the Shakespeare Theatre Company and will serve in a one-year residency at the institute.[21] In June 2023, CAA's Bruno del Granado was named to be head of the Board of the Aspen Institute's Latinos Society Program.[22]
The Aspen Institute's community program includes lecturers from the Hurst Lecture Series, the McCloskey Speaker Series, and the Murdock Mind, Body, Spirit series.[23]
As of 2019 the Aspen Institute had net assets of $310,055,857.
Funding details as of 2019:
The Henry Crown Fellowship, established in 1997, educates accomplished entrepreneurs from the private sector to become leaders in community and global development projects. The Aspen Global Leadership Network inducts an annual class of 20-22 candidates between the ages of 30-46 for a two-year training program. Instruction takes place at the Aspen Institute's campus in Aspen, Colorado, and various sites abroad.[24]
The New Voices Fellowship is a year long program for applicants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Every year, nominations are accepted from August through October. Fellows are selected in December and announced publicly in early January.[25] [26]
The New Voices Fellowship is a non-residential program. During the fellowship year, fellows meet three times for one week sessions. There are no age limitations for fellows. All expenses for participation in the fellowship are covered by the program. At times the program will also cover the cost of "media-related activities and conferences."[27] [26]
Community Colleges which succeed in attaining exceptional results for all students during their time in college and as post-graduates are awarded the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.[28] [29]
Recipients to date include:[30]
The Financial Times called the Faculty Pioneers and Dissertation Proposal Awards the "Oscars of the business school world". These honor business school instructors with an outstanding track record of leadership and risk-taking in ensuring that the MBA curriculum incorporates social, environmental and ethical issues.[33]
Recipients in the Category "Lifetime Achievement" include:
Community Colleges which demonstrate the provision of outstanding technical education and successfully link students, regardless of their race, ethnicity, family income or gender, with STEM careers as a gateway to economic mobility, are eligible to receive the Excellence and Equity in Community College STEM Award. The prize, awarded in co-operation of the Aspen Institute and Siemens Foundation, provides leading college staff with a benchmark standard of development and technical programs which foster equitable student success by highlighting exemplary practices of the winning programs.[35] [36]
Recipients include:
This annual award was created to honor an outstanding leader whose achievements reflect the high standards of honor, integrity, industry, and philanthropy that characterized the life and career of industrialist and philanthropist Henry Crown. Notable recipients include:
The full list of laureates appears on the Award's web page.[37]