Friday, August 31, 2012

A Look at Heritage Foundation by the Numbers

Have you ever wondered how much think tanks "produce" and communicate.  Following is a look at one of Washington's largest think tanks, the Heritage Foundation.  The following figures are based on the think tanks 2011 annual report.

Heritage Foundation 2011 Production:
  • 188 public lectures
  • 346 WebMemos
  • 131 Backgrounders
  • 14 Legal Memoranda
  • 3 White Papers
  • 5 moot court sessions for Supreme Court advocates
  • 30 Issue Briefings for candidates
  • 47 congressional testimonies
  • 1 GOP presidential candidate debate

Heritage Foundation 2011 Communications:
  • 9.6 million visitors to Heritage.org
  • 3,508 radio interviews
  • 1,339 television interviews
  • 1,400+ commentaries in major print outlets
  • 6.1 million visitors to "The Foundry" blog
  • 225,000 "Morning Bell" e-newsletter subscribers
  • 400,000 Heritage Facebook friends
  • 162,000 Heritage Twitter followers

On its website, Heritage says it currently has a staff of 275 and an annual expense budget of $82.4 million.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has released similar information in a document called "CSIS in Numbers" which can be found here.