Governance & Funding
Structure that guarantees the mission
The Institute's independence and public-goods character are not managed by good intentions. They are secured by legal form, by the Founding Commitments, and by a funding model in which no reader and no funder can purchase influence.
- Legal form
- A Virginia nonstock corporation organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes.
- Funding model
- Philanthropic grants and program-related publication revenue at published, uniform rates. Earned revenue is projected as a minority share of the budget; every dollar is reinvested in the Institute's programs under its governing documents.
- Independence
- The Institute takes no positions for parties and performs no work for parties. Its research agenda is set by public criteria — federal designations, published enforcement priorities, and documented doctrinal gaps — not by any funder or reader.
- Licensing
- Except where otherwise noted, publications and datasets are released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
- Sustainability precedent
- Free-at-the-core research infrastructure has operated sustainably in the United States for decades on this same mixed nonprofit model — philanthropic support plus modest program-related earned income, with the core remaining free at the point of use.