Who are the primary organizational and intellectual backers of Project 2025 and what are their prior policy records on religion in public life?
Executive summary
Project 2025 is a comprehensive conservative policy playbook organized and promoted primarily by the Heritage Foundation and a network of allied conservative organizations and individuals; its religious-policy proposals emphasize expanding government support for faith-based actors and loosening restrictions that separate church and state [1] [2] [3]. Critics from secular, civil‑liberties, and interfaith groups argue those measures would privilege a particular conservative Christian view in public life and erode established constitutional safeguards [4] [5] [6].
1. Who organizes and bankrolls Project 2025 — the institutional backers
The Heritage Foundation is the organizing institution behind Project 2025 and produced the Mandate for Leadership materials that feed into the plan, naming Heritage as the central sponsor and institutional hub for personnel and policy modules [1] [7]. Project 2025 also lists dozens of conservative partner groups and individual backers across think tanks, activist organizations, and former Trump officials; reporting and analyses that catalog supporters highlight groups such as the Family Research Council, Heartland Institute, Moms for Liberty, and Turning Point USA among others [8] [7].
2. Intellectual architects and personnel — who shapes the ideas
Key intellectual and managerial figures tied to Project 2025 include Heritage leaders and former Trump administration officials who translated the Mandate series into an implementation playbook; Heritage’s leadership described the project as building a personnel database, training academy, and an activation playbook to staff a next administration [7]. Reporting also links prominent conservative operatives and alumni of prior Trump administrations to the project; the ACLU and Britannica note a substantial overlap between Project 2025 contributors and people who served in the first Trump term [5] [2].
3. What their prior record shows on religion in public life
Heritage’s policy recommendations in Project 2025 explicitly push to expand federal funding and contracting access for religious organizations while removing regulatory safeguards that have been used to keep government funding from directly endorsing or imposing religious doctrine, including proposals to rescind eligibility determinations for faith-based SBA loans and to stop case‑by‑case reviews of religious exemptions for foster and adoption services [3] [9]. The Mandate and Project 2025 text recommend clarifying Title VII religious exemptions, restoring conscience enforcement to particular offices, and allowing faith-based contractors broader authority to make employment and service decisions on religious grounds [9] [3].
4. How allied conservative groups fit historically on religion and policy
Groups named among Project 2025 backers—like the Family Research Council and other social‑conservative organizations—have long advocated for “pro‑family” policies, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, and expanded roles for religious entities in public programs, a strand of activism with roots in the New Right and the Catholic New Right’s influence on conservative institutions going back decades [8] [10]. Those organizations’ prior records show repeated efforts to translate religiously informed moral positions into legal exemptions and policy preferences, a pattern that Project 2025 channels into specific federal‑level changes [10] [8].
5. Critiques, alternative framings, and stated intentions from supporters
Supporters frame these proposals as restoring religious liberty and preventing discrimination against people of faith in public life, arguing Project 2025 merely increases accommodation rights and government partnerships with faith‑based civil society [11]. Opponents—from civil‑liberties groups like the ACLU to secular organizations and interfaith alliances—contend that the plan’s measures would blur church‑state lines, privilege a particular religious viewpoint (often characterized as conservative Christian), and permit religious organizations to impose beliefs in taxpayer‑funded contexts, thereby undermining pluralism and constitutional protections [5] [4] [6].
6. What the record allows reporters to say — limits and solid conclusions
Available reporting establishes who organized and supported Project 2025 and documents explicit policy proposals that would change how religion and government interact; it also shows clear alarm among secular and civil‑liberties groups that those changes would weaken separation‑of‑church‑and‑state guardrails [1] [3] [4]. Beyond these documented positions and affiliations, assessments about intent—whether the aim is religious freedom broadly or privileging a single theological viewpoint—depend on interpretation of the same proposals and remain contested between proponents and critics [11] [6].