Something pretty cool happened in the 100+ degree weather of Phoenix on August 21st. At the closing dinner of the 2024 State Policy Network Annual Meeting, DonorsTrust President & CEO Lawson Bader was awarded the prestigious Roe Award.
Each year, the Roe Award celebrates a significant leader in the liberty movement. While Lawson has nine years of experience at DonorsTrust under his belt, he also led the Competitive Enterprise Institute as president for three years, and previously spent many years as a leader at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Below is the email we shared with DonorsTrust clients about the honor. I encourage you to watch this short video produced by SPN highlighting Lawson’s career if only to get a glimpse into what a true happy warrior in the fight for freedom looks like.
Links to his short speech are below as well. It contains some real gems, but I’ll close with this quote which calls all of us to stay strong and stay true:
“Friends, we are flying in turbulent times. Many forces are beyond our control. Let us remember, before policy and politics, what matters first are our core principles and our core values that define what we do.”
Subject: Celebrating Lawson Bader’s Achievements for Liberty
Friends,
Those who know Lawson Bader, DonorsTrust’s president and CEO, know he does not seek out the limelight or crave recognition.
Despite this—indeed, perhaps because of this—it was a joy to watch him be honored last week State Policy Network’s 32nd Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, as this year’s winner of the Thomas A. Roe Award.
Lawson may well be aghast to discover that I’ve sent this email. However, it’s important to occasionally pause and celebrate the advancement of liberty and the achievements of those who work hard to make America a freer and more prosperous place.
Lawson has dedicated his career to the ideas of a free society. If you only know him as the president of DonorsTrust, you might not know just how lucky we are to have him here. Over the last two decades, his leadership in the free-market world has been instrumental to nourishing the ecosystem of pro-liberty groups DonorsTrust clients regularly—and generously—support.
I first met Lawson during his days as vice president of the Mercatus Center, where he led innovative programs like Capitol Hill Campus. He went on to lead the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a role in which he’d like still be but for the untimely loss of DonorsTrust’s founding president Whitney Ball (herself a posthumous winner of SPN’s Roe Award, as is our distinguished board chair, Kim Dennis). His board service to groups like the Atlas Network and State Policy Network is a further testament to his commitment to liberty.
SPN produced a nice video tribute to Lawson’s career that you can watch below. You’ll even be able to get a glimpse of him in his favorite pastime, piloting a plane.
You can also watch his acceptance speech here or read his remarks here.
Please join me in congratulating Lawson on this well-deserved recognition of his service to limited government and human freedom—and, frankly, to being an all-around good guy. Give him a cheers with your whisky glass at an upcoming event or send him a celebratory email.
And I know he would want me, quite appropriately, to add a note of thanks to you for being a part of the DonorsTrust community. Lawson and all of us here stand ready to be of service to the important philanthropic work you do.
Peter
