The Institute for American Values, founded in 1987, is nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to study and strengthen key American values. The Institute brings together leading scholars from across the human sciences and across the political spectrum for interdisciplinary deliberation, collaborative research, and to issue joint public statements.

We ask: What are the cultural values most closely associated, especially in the American context, with human flourishing? That is, what are those ideas and practices that tend to produce competence, character, citizenship, thriving families, and a vibrant civil society?

What are the main challenges to those values? And how can those values be encouraged and strengthened?

In operational terms, our mission can be stated concisely: Through groundbreaking research and analysis focusing on fundamental American values, and in forging strong and diverse partnerships, the Institute seeks to strengthen families and civil society globally.

Currently, we pursue this mission by focusing intellectually on three closely related questions:

• How should we think about our families?
• How should we think about our money and resources?
• How should we think about our role in the world?

In turn, we aim in our or work to help foster three major social changes:

• An increase in the proportion of U.S. children growing up with their two married parents;
• A renewal of the ethic of thrift and a decline in the culture of debt and waste; and
• A turn in the intellectual tide against extremism in the Arab and Muslim world.

Back to Top | What others are saying about the Institute |  Personnel

Institute for American Values
1841 Broadway, Suite 211
New York, NY 10023
Tel: (212) 246-3942
Fax: (212) 541-6665