Heritage Foundation Founded by Conservative Activists and Business Leaders

The Heritage Foundation was formally established on February 16, 1973, by Paul Weyrich, Edwin Feulner, and Joseph Coors — the incorporation date reported by secondary profiles (Philanthropy Roundtable, Political Research Associates, InfluenceWatch; none of which cite the incorporation filing itself, which was not independently located — see Research Notes below). Businessman Joseph Coors provided the critical seed funding of $250,000 (equivalent to $1.6 million in 2021 dollars), enabling the creation of a conservative think tank designed to provide intellectual infrastructure for conservative policy development. Conceived in the basement of the U.S. Capitol by congressional aides Feulner and Weyrich, the foundation was explicitly created to counter liberal academic and policy influence by developing and promoting conservative policy recommendations.

Distinct, independently-verified date — IRS tax-exempt determination. The IRS Business Master File record for the Heritage Foundation (EIN 23-7327730, retrieved via ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer API, a mirror of the federal administrative record) gives a ruling_date of 1973-11-01 — the date the IRS granted 501(c)(3) status, roughly nine months after the reported February incorporation. This is a genuine primary federal record and a different kind of date from the incorporation date: incorporation creates the legal entity under D.C. law; the IRS ruling grants federal tax exemption. Both are real “founding” dates; neither should stand in for the other. The February 16 incorporation date remains sourced only to Tier-2 secondary profiles as of this pass.