Grantee Stories

Burundi is one of the poorest countries on Earth but thanks to the Centre for Development and Enterprises–Great Lakes (CDE), change is underway. CDE has helped farmers, women, and entrepreneurs break free from policies that kept the country stuck in poverty. From lifting bans on fertiliser and essential goods to strengthening women’s property rights and making it easier to start businesses, CDE is showing that economic freedom can improve lives drastically.

WFF also helps spread the message of liberty through translating key books, hosting seminars, and running advocacy campaigns. What began as a small grant from Linda Whetstone to founder Aimable Manirakiza has grown into a thriving partnership.

Find out more about CDE-Great Lakes here and here.

In November 2023, we awarded a $3,000 grant to the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF) to support their Faces of Liberalism project, aimed at promoting the ideas of classical liberal thinkers in the Philippines.

FEF’s campaign simplifies and summarises the ideas of each liberal thinker to appeal to a broad range of participants, primarily students, academics, and politically engaged citizens. It is based on a series of 10 social media graphics introducing people to the key ideas of prominent liberal thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill. The campaign has already achieved impressive results, with 278,378 impressions, a reach of 164,154 individuals, 21,151 engagements, 1,073 shares, and 17,550 reactions. FEF also drew 100 participants and two scholars to a webinar discussing liberalism in the global and Philippine contexts.

Find out more about FEF here and here.

Amid sky-high inflation and democratic backsliding, Freedom Research Association (FRA) is working to promote evidence-based policy making and create a freer, more prosperous Turkey.

FRA has successfully completed four projects with the Whetstone Freedom Fund, including translations of 'Public Choice – A Primer', 'An Introduction to Economic Inequality', 'An Introduction to Trade & Globalisation', and 'An Introduction to Taxation'. Through engagements with policymakers, journalists, and students, as well as promotion on social media, these projects have reached over 1.3 million people throughout Turkey.

FRA and WFF are set to continue their co-operation with a new economic education programme based on the new book 'An Introduction to Schools of Economic Thought', which aims to reach over 500,000 people with the essential ideas of the main branches of economic thought.

Find out more about FRA here.

Founded in 2023, the Impact Center for Policy Research is Zambia’s first free market think tank. Like many African countries, Zambia’s economic potential has been held back by corruption and poor institutions.

To raise awareness of the problem and deepen understanding about its root causes, Impact Center is working with WFF to engage students and journalists with the ideas in the book 'Public Choice – A Primer'. Through social media promotion and a series of policy reform colloquia across the country, Impact Center aims to reach 1,500 people with content that applies the principles of Public Choice Theory to Zambia’s policy debates.

To build on that foundation, Impact Center is running a multi-week mentorship programme for 35 selected participants to engage more deeply with Public Choice Theory and publish op-eds in national media applying the ideas to Zambia’s economic and institutional context.

Find out more about Impact Center here.

Spreading the ideals of freedom is no easy task in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where political instability, violence, and poverty are ever-present obstacles. Despite these challenges, Espoir Bindu and his CDE-DRC team have delivered fantastic results.

With the support of a $3,000 micro-grant from WFF, they led a successful outreach campaign based on the French translation of the IEA’s An Introduction to Entrepreneurship. They engaged over 1,500 students at events across five universities in the DRC, secured 800 online downloads of the book, and achieved more than 50,000 impressions on content related to the book’s ideas on social media.

Find out more about CDE-DRC here.

Despite the election of a socialist to its presidency and the ongoing instability in neighbouring Venezuela, the flame of liberty is burning bright in Colombia thanks to the work of our partners at Libertank.

Since supporting them with a $4,000 grant in November 2023, the team has translated 'An Introduction to Capitalism' into Spanish and introduced hundreds of students to its core ideas at four key Libertank events, Universidad El Cato, LíderLab Barranquilla, LíderLab Cali, and the Pola y Libertad book launch. More recently, Libertank reached over 7,000 people through in-person events and online promotion based on the ideas of Geoffrey Wood’s ‘50 Economic Fallacies Exposed’, which they also translated into Spanish.

Over the first half of 2026, Libertank will continue to build on their work with WFF with a project based on the Spanish translation of Kristian Niemietz’s ‘Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies’.

Find out more about Libertank here.

The Liberalist Centre for Education is a leading voice for liberty in Africa, working to train young journalists with the tools to promote free markets, individual liberty, and limited government. Through its “Journalism for Liberty Fellowship”, the Centre trains media professionals in Nigeria, Kenya, and Zambia, combining workshops, book discussions, and mentorship to build a new generation of pro-freedom voices. Fellows receive key IEA books such as ‘Foundations of a Free Society’, ‘An Introduction to Capitalism’, and ‘Ayn Rand - A Primer’ to deepen their understanding of classical liberal ideas.

With support from WFF, the Centre expanded the fellowship’s impact in 2025, launching podcasts, blogs, and explainer videos to reach over 50,000 people online. The program awarded 20 story grants to fellows for investigative journalism on liberty issues and will produce 20 podcast episodes, strengthening public debate around freedom and economic opportunity in Africa.

Find out more about The Liberalist here.

The Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR), a leading think tank in Kerala, India, is bringing ideas about how governments make decisions to a wider audience by translating ‘Public Choice - A Primer’ into Malayalam, spoken by over 35 million people. Supported by WFF, this project fills a critical gap in local-language resources on how political decision-making works, helping citizens, students, and policymakers better understand the trade-offs and incentives that shape governance.

Public Choice bootcamp, and collaborating with universities for book discussions. An online outreach campaign will target over 100,000 people, ensuring the concepts reach new audiences in Kerala and across the overseas Malayali community. Through this project, CPPR aims to introduce more informed conversations about economics and public policy in India.

Find out more about CPPR here.

Albania’s recent history has been defined by one of the world’s most tyrannical communist regimes and subsequent political instability. Their legacies still scar the nation, with its economic recovery held back by highly contentious disputes over property rights.

The WFF has been delighted to support the team at ICG Research to create change and move the country forward. With the support of a $4,000 grant, ICG is translating An Introduction to Entrepreneurship into Albanian and embarking on an exciting outreach campaign to communicate its core ideas to young people in both Albania and Kosovo. ICG will host five lectures at universities to promote the book’s message and aims to reach 100,000 people through a social media outreach campaign.

Find out more about ICG Research here.

Ominira Initiative for Economic Advancement is a Nigerian organization dedicated to supporting youth through economic education. In a country facing significant youth unemployment and economic challenges, Ominira seeks to inspire and equip young Nigerians with essential knowledge on trade, globalisation, and entrepreneurship. Their ongoing WFF-supported project involves printing and distributing two IEA primers, hosting student seminars, organizing an enterprise dialogue, and running an undergraduate essay competition. These are all designed to engage and motivate students and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Ominira’s project also features a Free Trade Fellowship Programme that engages five fellows to publish 30 articles in widely-read newspapers. The initiative leverages social media and video content to reach over 2,000 people online, broadening awareness for free trade and entrepreneurship across Nigeria.

Find out more about Ominira Initiative here.

Brazil is facing turbulent economic and political circumstances. Politics is divided between populists from the left and right, while high deficits, inflation, and protectionism contribute to economic disruption.

To address this, Objectivismo Brasil has partnered with the Whetstone Freedom Fund to boost understanding of different economic ideas across the country. They plan to translate the new book An Introduction to Schools of Economic Thought into Portuguese and promote it at book fairs across the country as well as on social media.

The project will also use the book to create a 12-part seminar series analysing different approaches to economics and applying them to Brazil’s economic and policy debates. In total, it aims to reach over 11,000 Brazilians and create a more informed debate as the country tackles major economic challenges over the coming years.

Pakistan is one of the countries where the basic principles of individual liberty are yet to take hold in culture or politics. Political instability and geographical remoteness make teaching these ideas incredibly difficult.

But the Alternate Solutions Institute is making important progress despite those obstacles. In June 2024, we awarded a $3,500 grant to Alternate Solutions Institute to support its 16th annual residential course in Khanaspur, Pakistan. This workshop was an intensive four-day course aiming to cultivate a deeper understanding of individual liberty, economic freedom, and democratic principles among 35 young participants.

We are encouraged by how efficiently ASI executed this project, which provides yet more evidence of a very promising future for Pakistan’s freedom movement.

Find out more about ASI here.