The Heritage Foundation
Feulner was a founding trustee of The Heritage Foundation from its founding in 1973 until 1977. Four years after its founding, in 1977, he left Representative Crane's office to become the foundation's president. [9] At the time, the foundation had nine employees and had been through four presidents since its 1973 founding.
As president of the foundation, Feulner made the foundation more aggressive, market-driven, and less ivory tower, and it began publishing easily-accessed and concise studies. By focusing the foundation's marketing, he helped transform Heritage from a small operation into a booming enterprise of conservative ideals, eventually creating a think tank that Newt Gingrich, in a New York Times column, called "the Parthenon of the conservative metropolis." [10] This new marketing strategy was called the "briefcase test", a concept that revolutionized the influence of think tanks on public policy and boosted Heritage's popularity, referring to a focus on easily accessed, timely, concise research that could fit in a briefcase. A further fillip was the foundation's publishing of policy reports and papers ahead of related legislation, rather than waiting until legislation had been passed, which had been the approach of most think tanks at the time. Feulner told The Washington Examiner , "it doesn't do us any good to have great ideas if we are not out there peddling our products." [8]
Within a year and a half of Feulner becoming president, Heritage's budget increased to $2.5 million and its donor pool grew to about 120,000. [11] Under his leadership, Heritage ultimately grew to 250 employees and, with annual income of about $80 million [10] and a donor pool of about 600,000, became one of the world's largest think tanks. [4]
In 1997, Feulner and its Asia policy expert Ken Sheffer co-founded Belle Haven Consultants, a Hong Kong-based for-profit consulting firm that represented Malaysia-based clients. Belle Haven Consultants, in turn, paid over $1 million in fees to lobbying firms, which ultimately registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. [12] [13]
In April 2005, The Washington Post reported that the Heritage Foundation softened its criticism of the Malaysian government after Feulner initiated a business relationship with Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. "Heritage's new, pro-Malaysian outlook emerged at the same time a Hong Kong consulting firm co-founded by Edwin J. Feulner, Heritage's president, began representing Malaysian business interests. The for-profit firm, called Belle Haven Consultants, retains Feulner's wife, Linda Feulner, as a "senior adviser." And Belle Haven's chief operating officer, Ken Sheffer, is the former head of Heritage's Asia office and is still on Heritage's payroll as a $75,000-a-year consultant," The Washington Post reported. [14]
The Heritage Foundation responded by denying any conflict of interest, stating that its views on Malaysia changed following the country's cooperation with the U.S. after the September 11 attacks, [15] and the Malaysian government "moving in the right economic and political direction." [16] [17]
In January 2013, Feulner published a column, "Economic Freedom on the Wane", reviewing the findings of the foundation's annual Index of Economic Freedom , an ongoing joint project between The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation since 1997. The index measures individual countries' policies in the broad areas of rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets.
In 2023, Feulner retired as chairman of Heritage's board of trustees, a role he briefly resumed in 2017 following the 2016 election of Donald Trump. [18]
In September 2023, Feulner endorsed Mike Pence in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries; Pence dropped out of the race the following month, in October 2023. [19]
Other roles
In 2014, Feulner served as president and treasurer of the Mont Pelerin Society. [20] He has served as a trustee and as chairman of the board of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He has also been a member of the board of the National Chamber Foundation, [21] the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, and the board of trustees and a life trustee of Regis University, his undergraduate alma mater.
He became a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and was the foundation's chair in 2021. [22] [23]
Among other executive and advisory roles, Feulner was president of the Philadelphia Society from 1982 to 1983 [24] and from 2013 to 2014, and is a past director of the Council for National Policy, the Acton Institute, and George Mason University. [1] Feulner served as a member of the Gingrich–Mitchell Congressional UN Reform Task Force in 2005 and of the Meltzer Commission from 1999–2000. He was vice chairman of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, known as the Kemp Commission, from 1995 to 1996. He was the chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy from 1982 to 1991, a consultant on domestic policy to U.S. president Ronald Reagan, and an adviser to several government departments and agencies. [1]
