State-infrastructure recommendation: $f.5fvf/3 years to John Loclre Foundation and Civires institute (North Carolina) [joint request} Staff (recommends a $1,500,000 Barder Fund grant over three years to the John Locke Foundation (JLF) and Civitas institute in Raleigh, NC, to support the creation a comprehensive and disruptive communications framework with four primary elements -- radio, online content aggregation, mobile applications, and an AP~style news service for local newspapers. JLF was founded in 1990 and employs research, journalism, and outreach programs to transform government through competition, innovation, personal freedom, and personal responsibility. It seeks a better balance between the public sector and private institutions of family, faith, community, and enterprise. Its president since last January has been Kory Swanson, who previously had been its executive vice president and a longtime staff member there. The John Locke Foundation and the Civitas institute have been two pillars of one of the mostwsuccessful conservative state infrastructures in the country during the past decade and especially during past three years. North Carolina?s has developed all of the characteristics of a successful such state infrastructure .. including committed local fondling support and, with direct and indirect Bradley support, a legal component. A ?Moral Monday? in Raleigh Civitas was founded in 2005 to provide programming and training to empower citizens to become better civic leaders and more-informed citizens; educate emerging public leaders, enabling them to be more effective in the democratic process; and conduct research to inform policymakers about free? market solutions to challenges facing the state. its president is Francis X. De Luca, a former director of Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina. JLF and Civitas have been two pillars of one of the most- successful conservative state infrastructures in the country during the past-decarie-and especially during past three years. North Carolina?s has developed all of the characteristics of a successful such state infrastructure including committed local funding supportand, with direct and indirect Bradley support, a legal component. Bradley has specifically and separately supported a new litigation center there, which is benefitting from the guidance of the Bradley-supported Goldwater Institute project for this very purpose. Conservative policymakers and the infrastructure there have been under sustained attack from the Left, only publicly exemplified by high?profile weekly ?Moral Monday? protests at the state capitol by Rev. William Barber, head of the state?s NAACP chapter. The North Carolina infrastructure aggressively fig back against these attacks including through Civitas' comprehensive, Bradley?supported and replicable ?Mapping the Left? project. JLF, Civitas, and the infrastructure they anchor are already national models, and they are wail?positioned to lead it to become an evenwbetter one. A Barder Fund investment in this effort to improve its communications capabilities, staff believes, would be well-warranted and yield positive results nationally, too, if and when replicated. JLF and Clvitas jointly, and ambitiously, are creating a framework that could easily be considered in furtherance of the Barrier Fund?s pubiic-discourse poiicy area, as well Again, its eiernents are: 1. Radio JLF witl overhaul and dramaticaliy expand its existing weekty Carolina Journal Radio broadcasts to daily offerings across its network of 20 commercial affiliates. The hour?long shows feature new, analysis, and wail-informed commentary. Civitas wilt form an entertainmenbdriven talkaradio program, first broadcast via podcast and later using a ?low?power? FM transmitter. It will initially be targeted to poticy?minded listeners in Raleigh, but ultimately will be offered for free to stations around the state. 2. Gnifne content aggregation .JLF will create, promote, and maintain NortnCarolinaConservative.com, a site modeled after RealCiearPoliticscom that will aggregate content from JLF, Civitas, and other North Carolina groups. Civitas will acquire a popular. but financially struggling Drudge Report-style news?aggregation site based in North Carolina, CarolinaPlottl-loundcom -- which already has high penetration among the policy- minded, but needs to promoted to the wider public. 3. Mobile appiioat?fons wew mobite applications as part of JLF and Civitas and motem it' is eve op pro ?3 new JLF-Civitas project mobile appiications, iisted to the right, to reach the growing number of citizens especially millennials -- who regularly consume their information through their mobiie devices. itoiConnection a and Civitas? website statistics show that nearly half of JLF or; app pp their traffic is from such mobite devices. CarolinaJournal app Mapping the Left app NCCivitas.org app 4. News service and web tool for content . . syndication CarolinaPiottHound app NorthCarolinaConservative app JLF and Civitas will help build and provide content to a new Northeafo?lnaHIStOW-Ofg app AP?styie news service and set of web tools to distribute news stories, investigative pieces, and audio and video content from JLF and Civitas to local neWSpapers for use in their own print and oniine editions.