Dear John,

The Super Bowl commands incomparable attention among sports fans and TV watchers, even though most people watching don’t actually have a team playing in “The Big Game.” 

I think that’s because even after your team is eliminated, there’s still something thrilling about rooting for the underdog or seeing a sports dynasty being born.

We aren’t gloomy about the end of the football season here at Atlas Network, because when you’re part of the worldwide freedom movement, you always have a team to root for—home and away. 

Our more than 500 pro-freedom partner organizations are gearing up for their most competitive year yet. And if you get into the action with these liberty-minded think tanks, content creators, and advocacy organizations from more than 100 countries, I’m confident you’ll find some real MVPs among them. 

Our approach to investing in the people and teams that make up the freedom movement is called Coach, Compete, Celebrate!™ Over forty years, we’ve developed this model to bring the same camaraderie and drive for excellence you see on the gridiron to organizations that have real solutions to problems created by government overreach and corruption. Here’s a short video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuxmueeiCIE

We’ve discovered that think tanks and other organizations dedicated to individual rights do their best when they are incentivized to raise their ambitions and benchmark their efforts against the achievements of their most impactful peers.

In football terms, our pre-season is all the coaching we provide young teams and talent, by teaching the essentials of think tank leadership, marketing, and fundraising through Atlas Network Academy—and by connecting peers at our five annual Liberty Forum conferences.

Our regular season consists of competitive grant programs where teams vie for support by developing their own local projects that make policy or cultural change in the direction of freedom. 

And when our partners become really effective at seeing through their grant projects, we challenge them to set the bar even higher by winning a spot in what might be our playoffs—Atlas Network’s Smart Bets program. Only a select group of high-impact Atlas Network partner organizations are offered the chance to pitch their projects at this level, with the chance for one team to receive over $75,000 in grants.  

Our Smart Bets are sometimes established stars in the movement, but they‘re all underdogs in the sense that they play under a “salary cap.” Most Smart Bets have annual budgets of less than $3 million, punching above their weight with projects that deliver major change and big philanthropic return on investment. 

Of course, I can’t forget about our Super Bowl. 

We’ve just closed the application window for our 2024 Templeton Freedom Award—a $100,000 grant to the organization that has made the biggest impact for free enterprise, innovation, and prosperity. Last year’s winner is on the way to building their own dynasty—and that’s something we celebrate, because their excellence will inspire many others. 

The Philippines’ Foundation for Economic Freedom has claimed the Templeton Freedom Award in 2019 and 2023 for their groundbreaking efforts to advance property rights and to reform outdated regulations that were preventing affordable access to electricity and internet services—benefiting more than 100 million Filipinos.

The Templeton Freedom Award is presented in November at Freedom Dinner in New York City, so there’s a long way to go in the 2024 competition. But I can tell you that there are scores of tremendous applicants from every part of the world.

I can’t wait to share their accomplishments with you this year. Stick with us this season and you may just find it changes your life. 

After all, when a football team raises the Lombardi trophy above their heads, it signifies that they’ve won a big game. But when Atlas Network partners bring the Templeton Freedom Award home, it recognizes their role in advancing hard-won liberties that improve the lives of millions of people.

As far as I’m concerned, there are few higher honors in life than being known as Freedom’s Champion. 

All my best,

Kam