Key Facts
Type
Person
Sector
ngo
Industry
Philanthropy
Status
Draft
Country
Not specified
Nationality
American
Birth Date
Not specified
Death Date
Not specified
Sex
Male
Also Known As
No alternate names
Tags
philanthropypolicy research
Overall Confidence
95%
Internal Notes
No notes
Career & Education
Positions
Vice Chairman
DonorsTrust
- Present
President
William E. Simon Foundation
- Present
Education
BA (1968), PhD (1973)
Michigan State University
Political Science
- 1973
About
James Piereson is an American philanthropist and conservative scholar who served as the long-time executive director of the John M. Olin Foundation from 1985 to 2005, supporting conservative causes and institutions. He later became president of the William E. Simon Foundation, which provides grants to conservative and libertarian causes, and is also a senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute.
Key Relationships
David Horowitz
major_donor
Under Piereson's leadership, the John M. Olin Foundation provided significant grants to Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture (predecessor to DHFC) in the 1990s, funding his anti-communist and cultural criticism projects.
Since 1990
Michael Joyce
collaborated
Worked alongside Piereson during Joyce's directorship at Olin, coordinating grants for academic programs in law, economics, and humanities that seeded the conservative intellectual movement.
Since 1981
Donors Trust
board_member
James Piereson serves as the Vice Chairman of the DonorsTrust board. A prominent intellectual and philanthropic leader, he formerly directed the John M. Olin Foundation, a key early funder of the conservative legal movement. His role at the William E. Simon Foundation connects DonorsTrust's governance to another significant source of conservative philanthropic funding.