Lawrence J. Mone, who served as president of the Manhattan Institute from 1995 until his retirement in 2019, will be the inaugural recipient of Atlas Network’s Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award.
Guided by Mone’s leadership, Manhattan Institute has grown into one of America's most respected think tanks. Their work has been vital to the promotion of free-market solutions to urban policy problems, particularly criminal justice, tax policy, welfare reform, and school choice. His insight as an educator and thought leader helped to establish City Journal, their quarterly publication, as one of the country's most important public policy magazines.
The award will be presented at Atlas Network’s annual Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, which will be held Thursday, November 7 at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.
Mone served as president of Manhattan Institute from 1995 until his retirement in 2019. He joined the Institute in 1982, serving as a public policy specialist, program director, and vice president before being named the Institute's fourth president. A summa cum laude graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, Mone taught high school history in Cambridge for several years before earning a master's degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982.
Sir Antony Fisher, Atlas Network's founder, championed the ideas of free enterprise, individual liberty, and opportunity for all. He dedicated his life to fighting socialism by laying the intellectual groundwork for lasting political change to take root by establishing independent research institutes that focused on innovative, market-based perspectives to public policy issues. In 1955, Sir Antony founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and through his efforts, other think tanks began to proliferate throughout the world. He founded Atlas Network in 1981 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth shortly before his death in 1988.
About Atlas Network
Atlas Network advances opportunity and prosperity by strengthening a global network of independent civil society organizations that promote individual freedom and remove barriers to human flourishing. We cultivate a network of partners—currently, more than 490 in 93 countries—that share a vision of a free, prosperous and peaceful world where the rule of law, private property, and free markets are defended by governments whose powers are limited.
Atlas Network’s vision is to create greater opportunity for individuals to use their talents freely and contribute to increasing levels of peace, civility, and prosperity, and we invest in civil society organizations that are working toward a free society. Through the unique “Coach, Compete, Celebrate” model, Atlas Network provides training, mentorships, and grant competitions designed to elevate the performance and celebrate the achievements of free-market organizations. The Doing Development Differently initiative helps Atlas Network partners to advance, implement, and market locally-grown solutions to poverty that improve established measurements of economic freedom, and regional centers in Latin America and Africa focus international attention on the political, social, and economic challenges of free-market reforms.
