The Power of Freedom Philanthropy

Less than one penny of every charitable dollar goes to defending freedom and democracy. This paper makes the case that freedom is a productive asset and that the philanthropic market has systematically underpriced it.

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The Power of Freedom Philanthropy

The paper’s thesis is that philanthropy systematically underprices the institutional foundations that make every other philanthropic outcome possible, and should instead treat freedom as a productive, investible asset class. It is written by Tim Reynolds, founder and chairman of The Reynolds Foundation, and Álvaro Salas-Castro, PhD, president and CEO of The Reynolds Foundation. This article first appeared in the Journal of Democracy, Volume 37, Number 3, July 2026, pages 50-67. © 2026 JoD Productions and Johns Hopkins University Press.

In the United States alone, giving reached $592.5 billion in 2024 (Giving USA 2025: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2024). Less than one percent of total giving - approximately $3.4 billion globally - reaches organizations working to build and protect constitutional governance, independent judiciaries, free press, and open civil society (Griffin et al., “Field in Focus: The State of Pro-Democracy Institutional Philanthropy,” Democracy Fund, 2024). The authors propose Freedom Philanthropy as a way to address this mispricing. The Reynolds Foundation is developing two working concepts: the Freedom Accelerator, a deployment map for freedom infrastructure, and Freedom Alpha, a framework for measuring the return on freedom investments. Read the Journal of Democracy article.