type: timeline_event In 2009, Ralph Reed - a prominent Council for National Policy member - founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition, officially incorporated on May 14, 2009, describing it as "a 21st century version of the Christian Coalition." This expanded CNP's religious right coordination capacity as the conservative movement prepared for the Tea Party era.
Reed had been executive director of the Christian Coalition in the 1990s and brought decades of experience in religious right mobilization to his role as a CNP member. The founding of Faith and Freedom Coalition represented CNP members creating new organizations that would plug into the existing coordination network.
The Faith and Freedom Coalition would become one of the major religious right organizations coordinating with CNP's broader network, alongside Tony Perkins's Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and other CNP member organizations. This demonstrated CNP's model: members led major conservative organizations that coordinated strategy through CNP's secretive meetings.
Reed's position as both a CNP member and founder of a major religious right organization exemplified the interlocking nature of conservative coordination infrastructure. At CNP's three-times-yearly meetings, Reed could coordinate Faith and Freedom Coalition's activities with Heritage Foundation policy, ALEC state legislation, Federalist Society legal strategy, and major donor funding priorities.
The timing of Faith and Freedom Coalition's founding - 2009, as the Tea Party movement emerged - positioned Reed's organization to play a role in mobilizing religious conservatives during the Obama presidency. CNP members would be central to Tea Party coordination, with Jenny Beth Martin (Tea Party Patriots co-founder) also serving on CNP's executive committee.
This illustrated CNP's ecosystem: members founded and led organizations (Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, Martin's Tea Party Patriots, Perkins's Family Research Council), which then coordinated with each other through CNP's secretive meetings, creating a network of organizations moving in lockstep because their leaders met three times yearly to align strategy.
Reed's CNP membership meant Faith and Freedom Coalition was integrated into the conservative coordination infrastructure from its inception, able to immediately coordinate with dozens of other conservative organizations through the CNP network.