New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is an American liberal think tank founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security, technology, health, gender, energy, education, and the economy. The organization is based in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California. Paul Butler is the think tank's interim chief executive officer.
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History
New America was founded in 1999 by Ted Halstead, Sherle Schwenninger, Michael Lind, and Walter Russell Mead as the New America Foundation Bill Moyers, Norman Lear, and members of the Rockefeller family were early financial backers. The organization is headquartered in Washington, D.C. In 2001, Halstead and Lind published The Radical Center, a book that argued the United States was ripe for a realignment around centrist political policies. The New York Times has claimed that the book is "in effect the foundation's mission statement." Over New America's first two years, its budget tripled from approximately $1 million to $3 million.
Ted Halstead served as New America's founding president and CEO starting in 1999. Steve Coll, a former managing editor at the Washington Post, took over for Halstead in 2007. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Princeton professor and former State Department official, succeeded Coll as CEO in 2013.
In the 2000s, New America's Len Nichols and Jacob Hacker advocated for healthcare reform built around a public option, a health insurance mandate, and an increase in taxes to provide subsidies for Americans who could not afford insurance.
In September 2011, Maya MacGuineas, who had previously worked for the Brookings Institution as well as on Wall Street, formed Fix the Debt, a campaign for tax reform and deficit reduction that included businesspeople and politicians such as Erskine Bowles, Alan Simpson, and Mark Warner. MacGuineas ran the campaign out of New America's offices.
The foundation's Economic Growth Program, directed by New America co-founders Sherle Schwenninger and Michael Lind, aimed to take a policy look at America and the world's economic problems. In 2011, the program commissioned a paper "The Way Forward: Moving From the Post-Bubble, Post-Bust Economy to Renewed Growth and Competitiveness".
On June 27, 2017, Barry C. Lynn, the director of the anti-monopoly Open Markets program at New America, issued a statement, criticizing Google, one of the organization's main sponsors. On August 30, 2017, it became known that Lynn was fired, and the Open Markets program was closed. According to The New York Times, New America did it to please Google. In response to the decision to fire Lynn and his team, 25 former and current employees of the think tank signed a letter expressing concern about the extent to which sponsors are influencing New America's work. Google reportedly made New America take this action because the researchers, including prominent young competition law scholar Lina Khan, had lauded the EU's antitrust ruling against Google. New America's president Anne-Marie Slaughter denied the allegations of improper influence by Google.
In 2021, Paul Butler, formerly COO of the consulting firm Sparks & Honey, joined New America as its president and chief transformation officer.
In July 2026, Anne-Marie Slaughter stepped down as New America's CEO. She was replaced on an interim basis by Paul Butler.
Political stances
New America has been characterized as "liberal" by the Pacific Standard online magazine, "left-leaning" by The Washington Post, and "left-of-center" by the Capital Research Center organization. It has been described as "nonpartisan" by the Washington Post, New York Times, and the New Republic.
Technology
New America operates the Open Technology Institute, which develops technologies and supports public policy meant to protect internet freedom and promote competition within the telecommunications field.
In the 2010s, the OTI developed Commotion Wireless an open source "device-as-infrastructure" communication platform designed to integrate users' wireless-capable devices to create community-sized peer-to-peer communications networks. Ultimately, the project did not prove sustainable. The relevant code development profiles for the project have not been updated since 2016, and the project's website has been offline since approximately September 2024. One relatively successful offshoot of the Commotion project is Red Hook Wi-Fi, a mesh network that serves residents of Red Hook, Brooklyn, in New York City. In 2012, when Hurricane Sandy shut down many internet and communication systems throughout the city, Red Hook remained connected through its mesh network.
In 2012, New America joined Free Press and Public Knowledge in a lawsuit against AT&T claiming that the company's blocking of Facetime constituted a violation of the FCC's net neutrality rules. New America argued against the Trump administration FCC's 2017 repeal of net neutrality regulations and developed model legislation that state lawmakers could use to protect net neutrality within their states. In 2025, after the Biden administration FCC's reinstatement of net neutrality regulations was blocked by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, New America asked the court to reconsider its ruling.
In 2019, New America founded the Public Interest Technology University Network, which creates educational programs meant to help students develop and advocate for technologies that benefit the public. As of 2020, the network had 22 members including Harvard, Howard, Stanford, and MIT.
Education
New America has conducted research identifying states well-suited for Race to the Top grants and assessed the quality of various early education programs.
In 2018, New America launched the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), a collaboration with the National Governors Association to provide high school students with work-based learning opportunities.
In 2026, New America published a report on financial aid leveraging, a practice in which colleges offer aid to relatively affluent, high-achieving students while leaving lower-income students to take on loans they may not be able to pay back. The organization has also argued for the elimination of federal student loans in favor of allocating federal money to states on the condition that the states increase higher education funding and hold colleges accountable for performance and costs.
Emmy Liss, a former educational consultant for New America, serves as New York City's head of childcare.
Political reform
In 2021, New America published a study on ranked choice voting. The study found that it tends to be more popular with younger and Democratic voters than older and Republican ones. It also found that a large majority of voters believe they have a strong understanding of how the ranked choice system works.
In 2024, only eight percent of congressional races in the U.S. were decided by less than five percentage points. New America has argued for fusion voting in order to produce a greater number of competitive races. The organization has also proposed proportional representation as a method for better representing minority views within individual congressional districts.
National security
New America maintains a database of post-9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The information in this database has demonstrated that the vast majority of attacks on U.S. soil have been committed by American citizens or permanent residents, as opposed to foreigners. New America's research in this area was widely cited in news coverage critical of the Trump administration's 2017 travel ban. In 2017, New America fellows met with White House officials to discuss a counterterrorism strategy that took into account both domestic and foreign threats to the nation's security.
New America also maintains a database that measures the frequency and effect of U.S. drone strikes, including the military and civilian casualties produced by those strikes.
Family care
A 2016 New America report found that full-time out-of-home care for children under the age of four costs the American family an average of $9,589 per year and that in-home care costs an average of $28,353 per year. The report argued that these high costs harm the labor market. New America fellow Vicki Shabo has advocated for paid parental leave policies in order to ease the financial burden.
In 2026, New America's New Practice Lab published a survey that asked approximately 5,500 parents of young children about their work lives, childcare arrangements, use of parental leave, and hopes for the future. The survey found that 72% of parents wish they could spend more quality time with their kids and that 52% of parents consider money and affordability a barrier to doing so. The survey also found that 55% of parents wish that they could have taken longer parental leave following the birth of their children.
Assets and funding
New America is registered as a non-profit under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. Its financial information is publicly available through annual IRS Form 990 filings and independent audits. For the financial year of 2024, the organization reported revenue of approximately $37.2 million and expenses of $41.3 million. Its total assets for the same period were recorded at $81.4 million, and a net asset position of $52.3 million.
The organization maintains a funding disclosure policy and publishes a list of institutional donors on its website. Top institutional donors in recent years have included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, Google, Alphabet, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Board of directors
New America's board leadership has changed several times since the organization's founding. In November 2017, Lenny Mendonca was appointed chair of the board. He was succeeded in September 2019 by Helene D. Gayle, who served as chair until 2023. Following her tenure, Gayle has continued to serve as a member of the board. In January 2024, the organization announced the addition of Don Katz and Patrick Radden Keefe as new board members.
As of 2025, the chair of the board is Sally R. Osberg, with Monica C. Lozano and Todd Park serving as vice chairs.