The Diana Davis Spencer Foundation

Webpage: DDS Foundation

Type

Non-profit foundation

Overview

The mission of the Foundation is to promote entrepreneurship, self-reliance, global understanding, free enterprise, and to enhance the quality of life by supporting the arts, education, health advancements, and preservation of the environment.

Worldview

Conservative

Key Ideas: 

Our Sacred Honor

An address given by former Ambassador to Switzerland Shelby Collom Davis embodies the spirit and goals of the Foundation.  In it Ambassador Davis reviews the origins of the United States in the honor of 56 men who were willing to give their all, comparing their dedication to our society’s current dedication to self-serving pleasure.  Lamenting its potential collapse, he compares the story of the United States with the history of many other powerful nations, including Rome, that faded into obscurity because they lost the enduring values that make life worth living, exchanging them for free bread and circuses.  But he declares that this cycle of decline is not inevitable if we become men who can stand before a demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking. 

A summary of "Our Sacred Honor" and a link to the full text can be found here.

Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy

The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, within the Heritage Foundation, promotes a stronger America and consists of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy, and the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, the Asian Studies Center, and the International Studies staff.

Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship's mission is to provide programs that inspire young people from low-income communities to stay in school, to recognize business opportunities and to plan for successful futures.  … when young people from low-income communities are given the opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, their innate "street smarts" can easily develop into "academic smarts" and "business smarts."

The fasted growing part of the Networks program is outside the United States, primarily in China. 

Finances

Structure: 501(c)(3)

Funding:  privately funded by the heirs of Shelby Collom Davis

Other Organizations

Heritage Foundation  leadership for America