The Institute

For decades, the Roosevelt Institute has been devoted to carrying forward the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Whether celebrating leaders who have embodied the Roosevelts’ ideals or empowering emerging leaders to build a more progressive future, the Roosevelt Institute protects and promotes the vision of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Institute is the nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, and supports the Library’s exhibits, educational programs, and special initiatives. The Institute is also home to the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network, connecting 80+ college campuses and more than 8,500 students and alumni to a vibrant series of programs that engage them in discussing progressive values, empower them to develop public policy, and promote their ideas to policymakers at all levels of government. Building on this leadership pipeline, the Institute is building new opportunities for young progressive thinkers in their 20s and 30s, opportunities which have previously been far too few.

In much of its work, the Institute engages some of the fundamental policy challenges of our era, supporting people - young and old - who carry forward the courage and values that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt brought to key points in the 20th century. With an eye on the future, the fellows of the Roosevelt Institute focus on important questions around how to frame and shift broad policy paradigms - not just narrow details that often dominate the day-to-day of policy making.

With this focus, the Roosevelt Institute hopes to contribute to bold, progressive change over a generation - working with opinion leaders, policy makers and people of all backgrounds - rather than limiting ourselves only to what seems possible today. We support the development and promotion of ideas by some of the smartest progressive minds in the country; we encourage a debate of substance and policy direction, inspired by the bold vision that the Roosevelts brought to the last century. We frame goals for the future with a deep knowledge and appreciation of the past. The policy work of Roosevelt Institute fellows reflects a commitment to rigorous, open-minded inquiry and a belief in the power that can be derived from a lively and free debate of ideas in the United States and around the world.

The Institute has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Hyde Park, NY, where we continue to work in partnership with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.