Heritage Foundation Honors 5 Leaders in Educating About the American Founding

The Heritage Foundation presented five special Innovation Prizes on Tuesday to organizations dedicated to educating audiences about America’s founding ideals.

The awards were given to honor the upcoming 250th anniversary of America’s Founding. They come as Heritage—which has been around for about one-fifth of the nation’s existence, having been founded in 1973—also launches its new online book celebrating key Founding Fathers of the American political system.

The Innovation Prizes, which are awards of $250,000 for each individual project, were presented to the Cana Academy, Emergent Order, the Herzog Foundation, the Sophia Institute, and Matthew Meehan of Hillsdale College.

“The winners of this special round of Innovation Prizes are builders of that future. We’re proud to recognize five projects that have joined Heritage in reviving our Founding principles,” said Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation.

“Together, we can reignite the flame of patriotism that gave life to our great country—and remind Americans that we are standing at the sunrise of a new Golden Age, rooted once more in the permanent things: faith, family, work, sovereignty, and sacrifice,” Roberts explained.

The awardees are some of the preeminent movers and shakers in the education space.

Cana Academy, based in Falls Church, Va., is a classical education institution that is working on disseminating 250 short documentaries on notable events in American history. It is also creating maps and original documents related to the documentaries, conducting interviews with historians, and drafting lesson plans for teachers in the classroom. Cana has provided in-person training for 5,000 teachers since 2016. The hope is that these documentaries will provide unity and vision for the next generation of Americans and their history teachers.

The Emergent Order Foundation, based in Austin, Texas, is a nonprofit studio that is producing a six-part video series named “250 Years in Pursuit.” The series, which will be launched in January 2026, will comprise interviews with top historians, explore America’s Founding documents, and examine the continuing legacy of America’s ideals. The series will be distributed through social media, YouTube, and podcast platforms, and there will be additional educational supplements to be used in high school.

The Smithville, Missouri-based Herzog Foundation is a national organization dedicated to accelerating the development of high-quality Christian education. The organization is sponsoring rally-style events next year grounded in liberty, faith, and the American spirit as part of what it calls a “Freedom Tour.”

The events will feature keynote speeches, student art, family activities, and music. The tour will include stops at all 13 states that were among the original Colonies and will take place over three weeks. It will conclude in Philadelphia on July 3, 2026.

The events will be streamed on major social media platforms and include teacher training on passing down the Founding values. The Herzog Foundation is also releasing a weekly video series to promote the tour from July 4 of this year to July 4 of next year. 

The Sophia Institute of Nashua, New Hampshire, is one of the largest conservative nonprofits serving Catholic education. The group has trained more than 45,000 Catholic schoolteachers through its in-person workshops, and its textbooks are used by more than 900 Catholic schools and 1,500 parishes.

The nonprofit is developing three resource kits for Catholic children and parents. The kits will engage with the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, such as the pursuit of the common good. Each kit will be designed for parents to engage with their children of various ages in interactive lessons and activities. The project’s goal is to foster patriotic gratitude.  

Matthew Meehan is a bestselling children’s book author who is also the associate dean and assistant professor of government for the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College. He is producing “The American Family’s Book of Fables,” a creative effort that seeks to depict America’s beautiful wildlife and geography while incorporating the Declaration of Independence’s actual words. The book, to be illustrated by John Folley, will feature among other things: the redwood forest, the bald eagle, the Rocky Mountains, the grizzly bear, the Everglades, and the bullfrog. 

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