Dear John,

It’s so good to be writing to you again after taking some time off. First, thanks to everyone who gave to our year-end campaign! Scaling up our efforts to support liberty all around the world is what we’ve been challenged to do in 2024, and we can’t do it without you. You’re awesome for making that happen!

I’m actually not a fan of New Years’ resolutions. I like the idea that if it’s time to fix something, you just do it. 

That brings me to a friend of ours who gave me a great quote to start 2024 with: “The challenge was—and still is—to have short-term successes too, because you can’t reach a long-term goal just on dreams.” Before I tell you who that came from, let’s talk about that.

If you spend some time on The Website Formerly Known As Twitter, you might discover people out there who think Atlas Network is a shadowy secret society bent on world domination, populated by people who look like a Bond-villain character with a cat in their lap and an eyepatch. First—they’re wrong; Vale has a dog, and doesn’t wear an eyepatch.  

But, seriously, there is no “man behind the curtain” with Atlas Network—there’s just people like you and me, and Atlas Network partners from around the world who are using things like the internet and conferences to build a stronger movement for the ideas we cherish. 

We share a dream of a world with more liberty and prosperity, where governments don’t get in the way of people living fulfilling and dignified lives. And if you’re still here, you probably know like we do that our dreams don’t just come true all at once. They’re slowly realized by working hard absolutely every day for small wins that add up and inspire big successes. 

As far as resolutions go, I plan to spend much of 2024 telling you about those wins that are happening all over the world, but that you might never see in the news. 

That brings me to the guy who inspired the first half of this email, Jorge Velarde Rosso, founder and academic director at Libera Bolivia. Like most of Latin America, they have been fending off a rising “pink tide” of resurgent socialist/populist governments for some time. These governments count on their people to be misinformed about economics, which is where Libera Bolivia comes in.

Jorge talked about his short-term successes, and long-term ones, in the most recent copy of Freedom's Champion magazine. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but he decided a long time ago that in order to get the country you want, you must start by educating the next generation. He founded his organization in 2011, and today he’s touched the lives of over 6,000 young people by teaching them about freedom.

Jorge used his first grant from Atlas Network to buy a projector that he used for five years’ worth of workshops Libera gave in schools. Atlas Network Academy training courses also sharpened his team’s professional and institutional development as they grew as an organization. Jorge still took the biggest step of starting his organization by himself and made do for five years without us. But Atlas Network supporters gave him the tools to succeed, and impact even more lives.

Bolivia isn’t going to embrace all the best ideas tomorrow because of your support, but they can hope to reject the worst ones, and continue to make steady progress in discovering good ideas. Because as Jorge said, “The challenge was—and still is—to have short-term successes too, because you can’t reach a long-term goal just on dreams.”

If you haven’t cracked open Freedom’s Champion magazine before—or just haven’t seen it in a while, I’d love to offer you a chance to see more successes like this. Simply click the link below to download our latest digital edition and learn how you can subscribe to receive a physical copy of the magazine at your home address: https://resources.atlasnetwork.org/freedoms-champion/.

It’s good to be back to work again, to hear stories of people in faraway places who love freedom just like we do, and to be able to support them on their journey. Thanks for sticking with us as we work toward the short-term successes—we wouldn’t see the long-term successes without you.

All my best,

Kam