New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a non-partisan think tank in the United States. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, education, and the economy. The organization is based in Washington, D.C., with additional offices in New York City.
Ted Halstead served as New America's founding President and CEO from 1999 to 2007. Steve Coll served as New America's second President. In 2013, Anne-Marie Slaughter became President of New America, replacing Steve Coll. Google's Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, is the chairman of the foundation's board of directors.
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History and mission
New America was founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind, and Walter Russell Mead as a non-profit, public policy institute whose stated mission is to "invest in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States". The organization has a staff of over a hundred employees and fellows with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The organization continues to "emphasize work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st-century information-age economy" with "big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions". Newsweek's Howard Fineman called it a "hive of state-of-the-art policy entrepreneurship".
Organization and structure
The organization houses programs and initiatives that focus on domestic, economic and global issues. and also houses a fellowship program.
Foreign policy
The foundation's National Security Studies Program researches and analyzes global issues, from the inner workings of al-Qaeda to overall national foreign policy strategy. With the presence of journalists such as Steve Coll and Peter Bergen, it has carved out a policy niche in the issues of Afghanistan and counter-terrorism. Bergen, who leads the program, is a CNN national security analyst and author of several best-selling books, including The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda. Coll, former president of New America, has also written several books on al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner for general non-fiction, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. James Risen in The New York Times complimented Coll on "revealing how Saudi Arabia and its intelligence operations aided the rise of Osama bin Laden and Islamic extremism in Afghanistan".
The foundation also has a policy focus on the Middle East with its Middle East Task Force, directed by Leila Hilal, which covers analysis and commentary on the Middle East and North Africa.
Technology
New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI) led by Kevin Bankston has become one of the largest programs within the organization. Focus areas of OTI include wireless community networks building, the creation and management of an open source platform that supports broadband research tools and speed tests, the development of a platform (called Commotion Wireless) to lower barriers for building distributed communications networks, among other projects.
In the same vein of technology, the foundation Future Tense initiative, a partnership with Arizona State University and Slate Magazine, explores emerging technologies and their effects on society and public policy. Central to the partnership is a series of events in Washington, D.C., that take an in-depth look at issues that, while little-understood today, could reshape the policy debates of the coming decade.
Economics
The foundation's Economic Growth Program, directed by New America co-founders Sherle Schwenninger and Michael Lind, aims to take a policy look at America and the world's economic problems. In 2011, the program commissioned a paper "The Way Forward: Moving From the Post-Bubble, Post-Bust Economy to Renewed Growth and Competitiveness" which warned of the severe economic problems America would face if continued on its current path. The program did not believe in immediate government deficit reduction; it believed that will only make the situation worse. Instead, as stated in the paper, it had other suggestions, including investing in a sustained infrastructure program, lasting from five to seven years, to create jobs and demand.
Formerly, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget was a part of New America until it separated to become the Fix the Debt campaign. The bipartisan Committee ran a number of projects, including U.S. Budget Watch, a project funded by Pew Charitable Trusts which reports on important fiscal issues relating to the 2008 election and afterwards. One of its more recent initiatives is the "Go Big" initiative, which was created after the Budget Control Act of 2011, enacted in early August to raise the debt-ceiling and avoid default. The effort urged a bipartisan 12-member Joint Congressional Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the Super Committee, with finding an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by November 23.
Maya MacGuineas, who has worked at the Brookings Institution as well as on Wall Street, led the Committee and now leads Fix the Debt. After advising politicians from both parties, she serves as a trusted mediator on budget talks between Democrats and Republicans. In addition, in April 2010 the Committee's policy director, Marc Goldwein, joined President Obama's bipartisan Fiscal Commission. Goldwein, 26, was also named one of the Forbes' "30 under 30".
Education Policy Program
New America's Education Policy Program comprises scholars on pre-k to K-12 through higher education and into the workforce. The policy staff produce the EdCentral blog. It also comprises the Federal Education Budget Project, which serves as a "source of information on federal education funding for policymakers, the media, and the public."
Fellows program
The organization provides fellowships to "foster the next generation of thinkers and public intellectuals" through the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows program. The fellowship "supports talented journalists, academics and other public policy analysts who offer a fresh and often unpredictable perspective on the major challenges facing our society". Alumni of the program include Jacob Hacker, Megan McArdle, Katherine Boo, Robert Wright, Tim Wu, Chris Hayes, Romesh Ratnesar, David Auerbach, and Dayo Olopade.
New America NYC
Launched in winter 2011-12, New America NYC is an initiative that aims to further the foundation's goals of research and policy innovation. The space, located in SoHo, hosts several events each month generally focused on politics, media, and culture.
Published articles
Articles published by New America staff include the 2012 report "The Outlaw" by Steve Coll, which ran in The New Yorker and explores Osama bin Laden's life and his use of media to get his message out; "Romney Lays Out Weak Obama Attack Line After New Hampshire Primary Win" in The Daily Beast by Peter Beinart; and "An American Hospital: The Most Dangerous Place?" by Shannon Brownlee in TIME magazine.
On January 13, 2014, the foundation put out a report by Peter Bergen et al. on the effectiveness of the National Security Agency and its spying programs gathering big data, nationally and worldwide, just four days before President Barack Obama's speech on NSA reforms as a consequence of the disclosures since June 2013 by former NSA-contractor Edward Snowden. The report found only insignificant or minimal influence of the agency's surveillance programs on cases of terrorism.
Funding
The list of organizations and individuals that supported the foundation in 2013 includes more than 140 contributors. The top donors, giving more than $1,000,000 each, were the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, Eric and Wendy Schmidt, and the US Department of State.
Board of Directors
The New America Foundation's Board of Directors consists of 23 members. It is chaired by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet Inc, who succeeded founding chairman James Fallows in 2008. Other members include:
- David G. Bradley, owner of the Atlantic Media Company
- David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times
- Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University
- Boykin Curry, former board member is what is now Public Prep Network
- Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic advisor of Allianz
- James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly
- Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital
- Helene D. Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA
- William W. Gerrity, managing partner of Gerrity Group
- Ted Halstead, think-tank executive and author
- Zachary Karabell, president of River Twice Research
- Jeffery Leonard, president and CEO of the Global Environment Fund
- Kati Marton, author and journalist
- Walter Russell Mead, James Clarke Chace Professor at Bard College
- Lenny T. Mendonca, former director/senior partner of McKinsey & Company.
- Steven Rattner, chairman of Willett Advisors LLC
- Reihan Salam, executive editor of National Review
- Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of New America
- Jonathan Soros, CEO of JS Capital Management
- Ashley Swearengin, mayor of Fresno, California
- Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates
- Fareed Zakaria, journalist and author
Former members
- Liaquat Ahamed, investment manager and author
- Laurene Powell Jobs is a former board member
Leadership Council
The foundation's Leadership Council, chaired by Scott Delman, recognizes those individuals who contribute $25,000 or more to the Foundation each year. As members of the Leadership Council, they participate in the intellectual life of the Foundation in numerous ways. For instance, they are invited to attend a special annual retreat with New America senior staff, Fellows and Board of Directors, as well as a series of salon dinners. The Leadership Council currently has 17 members, which includes Craig Newmark (Customer Service Rep and founder, craigslist.org), Leo Hindery, Jr. (Managing Partner, InterMedia Partners), and Neal Baer, M.D. (Executive Producer of the television series A Gifted Man).
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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