Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research

The Pioneer Institute (PI) is a right-wing pressure group that describes itself as a "think tank" that is "committed to individual freedom and responsibility, limited and accountable government, and the application of free market principles to state and local policy". It houses and runs the Center for School Reform, the Shamie Center for Better Government, and the Center for Economic Opportunity. It is known for having a staff that has served in various positions in the recent Republican Massachusetts governors' administrations (Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney).

The Pioneer Institute is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN).

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
The Pioneer Institute has ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It has been listed as a member of the ALEC Education Task Force and the Health and Human Services Task Force. An August 2013 ALEC board document obtained by The Guardian suggests that the Pioneer Institute terminated its ALEC membership on March 18, 2013 after it was "kicked out of ALEC (?) because of education issue" (presumably a resolution in opposition to Common Core that passed the Education Task Force twice but was voted down by ALEC's board). SPN is also a private sector member of ALEC.

See SPN Ties to ALEC for more.

Ties to Mitt Romney
The following are known connections between the Pioneer Institute and 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney:


 * Charles Chieppo, the institute’s current Senior Media Fellow and former director of the Pioneer Institute’s Shamie Center for Restructuring Government, was Romney’s Policy Director in the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.
 * Jim Peyser, the institute’s Executive Director from 1993-2000, is a member of Romney’s 2012 campaign’s education policy advisory committee, was chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education during Romney’s administration, and was an education advisor to Romney during his time as governor.
 * Steve Poftak, the institute’s current Research Director, was head of the Executive Office of Administration and Finance in the Romney administration, where he oversaw the state budget.
 * Charles Baker, former executive director of the Pioneer Institute, was a Romney advisor in 2003 and chaired his transition advisory committee on healthcare before he became governor. Baker would go on to be the Republican Party’s gubernatorial nominee in 2010.
 * Kerry Healey, Romney’s Lieutenant Governor, is a current member of the Pioneer Institute’s Board of Directors.
 * Peter Nessen simultaneously served on the Pioneer Institute’s Board of Directors and as the chief education advisor to Romney during his time as governor.
 * Erin Blake Elefante, Pioneer Institute’s development director, worked on Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.
 * Mary Z. Connaughton, Pioneer Institute’s Director of Finance and Administration, was appointed by then-Governor Romney to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board of directors.
 * Josh Archambault, current Director of Health Care Policy at the Pioneer Institute, was a senior legislative aide in the Massachusetts Governor’s Office during the Romney administration.
 * Former District Court Judge Daniel B. Winslow, who served as then-Gov. Romney’s chief legal counsel, won the institute’s “Better Government” competition for proposals to reform the judiciary.

2003 Massachusetts Board of Education Ethics Tangle
The Pioneer Institute was the subject of controversy when the state Ethics Commission investigated several members of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 2003. As the board was getting ready to vote on 11 proposed charter schools, board member Charles D. Baker asked the state Ethics Commission if he should recuse himself due to the fact he sat on the Pioneer Institute’s Board of Directors, and six of the 11 charter proposals were submitted by people who received training, support, and a $50,000 stipend (each) from the Pioneer Institute. Baker had previously recused himself of charter school votes in 2002. Two other members of the nine-person board of education also had ties with the Pioneer Institute: Abigail Thernstorm, who was an academic advisor to the institute; and Chairman James Peyser, who was the institute’s former executive director. Peyser did not ask for the Ethics Commission’s opinion, and Thernstorm was cleared to vote by the commission as long as she disclosed her relationship with the Pioneer Institute to the governor’s office (Mitt Romney). Baker ended up not attending the voting meeting, and therefore did not vote, due to a scheduling conflict.

The matter was later brought up in court when the city of North Adams sued the Board of Education, the state’s education commissioner, and the attorney general over the constitutionality of charter schools since they are both publicly funded and privately run. The lawsuit claimed that there was a conflict of interest in the approval of several charter schools due to their connections, present and past, to the Pioneer Institute. The lawsuit was dismissed by the court in 2004.

Pioneer's History: Ties to Oil and Gas Magnate and GOP Apparatchiks
The Pioneer Institute was founded with a $160,000 grant (and matching grants requested from personal friends) in 1988 by businessman Lovett C. Peters (1913-2010), who made his millions in the oil and gas industry, including at Energy Ventures, Conoco, and Bankers Trust. Civil rights attorney Harvey A. Silverglate told the Boston Globe upon Peters' death in 2010, "His creature, the Pioneer Institute, follows Pete’s lead . . ." Peters' son Daniel runs the Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation, a major donor to the cause of education privatization. Peters received the "Roe Award" -- named after SPN founder Thomas A. Roe -- from SPN and the "Champions of Freedom Award" from SPN member the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan. He was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (a right-wing "free market" organization convened in 1947 by economist F.A. Hayek that counts among its current and former members Charles G. Koch and Thomas A. Roe).

According to the Boston Globe, "the Shamie Foundation . . . is actually the forebear of the Pioneer Institute, which took over its registration number with the secretary of state's office and the attorney general's division of public charities. [Prominent Massachusetts Republican politician Raymond] Shamie is a contributor to Pioneer." Shamie was chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party when Pioneer was founded in 1988. The Institute spent the two years between its founding and the election of Massachusetts' first Republican governor in 16 years, William F. Weld, "trash[ing] state programs," and the Globe called the organization "an agenda-setting forum for the administration" of then-Governor-elect Weld.

The Institute has focused on charter schools and education reform in Massachusetts since the early 1990s. The organization also focuses on government transparency, privatization, economic development, government spending, and healthcare.

Kochs and More: Pioneer Institute Funding
SPN think tanks do not as a general rule publicly disclose their donors. Pioneer, however, does list select donors (without specific donation amounts) in its annual reports, which show that David Koch has given at least $100,000 a year directly to the organization in most years since 1998. CMD has also discovered that David Koch gave $125,000 directly to the Massachusetts-based SPN member think tank Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research in 2007, making him (individually) the largest donor that year. A list of 2007 funders that was disclosed to the IRS was inadvertently made public. That list of funders -- featuring Pennsylvania-based Sovereign Bank, oil and gas magnate Lovett C. Peters, banker William Edgerly, retired Blue Seal Feeds CEO Dean Webster (former director of the right-wing think tank Capital Research Center), Mitt Romney's lieutenant governor Kerry Healey, and textile heir Roger Milliken in addition to David Koch -- provides an important case study in how SPN's member think tanks are funded, and by whom.

Other known funders of the Pioneer Institute include:


 * Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation: $641,000 (1997-2006)
 * David H. Koch Foundation: $300,000 (1995-2001)
 * Jacqueline Hume Foundation: $309,500 (1999-2011)
 * Smith Richardson Foundation: $50,000 (1996)
 * Roe Foundation: $83,000 (1998-2011)
 * Walton Family Foundation: $479,650 (1998-2001 and 2011)
 * John M. Olin Foundation: $2,000 (1992)
 * Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation (family foundation of Pioneer's founder, Lovett Peters, with money made in energy industry): $423,100 (1999-2011)

Core Financials
 2011   2010  :  2009  :  2008  :
 * Total Revenue: $2,204,323
 * Total Expenses: $1,616,241
 * Net Assets: $2,628,329
 * Total Revenue: $1,255,039
 * Total Expenses: $1,475,754
 * Net Assets:$2,040,246
 * Total Revenue: $1,255,039
 * Total Expenses: $1,475,754
 * Net Assets: $2,040,246
 * Total Revenue: $1,372,090
 * Total Expenses: $1,342,630
 * Net Assets: $1,715,824

Staff

 * Jim Stergios, Executive Director
 * Mary Z. Connaughton, Director of Finance and Administration
 * Joshua Archambault, Director of Health Care Policy and Program Manager, Middle Cities Initiative
 * Jamie Gass, Director of the Center for School Reform
 * Shawni Littlehale, Director of Pioneer’s Better Government Competition
 * Erin Elefante, Director of Development
 * Micaela Dawson, Director of Communications
 * Brian Patterson, Development Coordinator
 * Iliya Atanasov, Senior Fellow on Finance
 * Charles D. Chieppo, Senior Media Fellow
 * John Friar, Senior Fellow on Jobs & the Economy
 * Stephen Lisauskas, Senior Fellow on Urban Revitalization
 * Amy Lischko, Senior Fellow on Health Care

Officers

 * Stephen Fantone, Chairman
 * Lucile Hicks, Vice-Chair
 * C. Bruce Johnstone, Vice-Chair
 * Nancy Anthony, Treasurer
 * Jim Stergios, Executive Director
 * Mary Z. Connaughton, Clerk & Assistant Treasurer

Members

 * Steven Akin
 * Nancy Coolidge
 * Stephen Fantone
 * Douglas Foy
 * Kerry Healey
 * Ellen R. Herzfelder
 * Charles C. Hewitt, III
 * Lucile Hicks
 * C. Bruce Johnstone
 * Preston McSwain
 * Alan Morse
 * Beth Myers
 * Mark Rickabaugh
 * Diane Schmalensee
 * Kristin Servison
 * Brian Shortsleeve
 * Patrick Wilmerding
 * Emmy Lou Hewitt, honorary
 * Edna Shamie, honorary
 * Phyllis M. Stearns, honorary
 * William B. Tyler, Chairman Emeritus

Contact Information
85 Devonshire Street Boston, MA 02109 Phone: 617-723-2277 Fax: 617-723-1880 URL: http://www.pioneerinstitute.org