“After the Fact” Podcast: Pew’s 70 Years of Nonpartisan Solutions

This year, The Pew Charitable Trusts celebrates 70 years of serving the public interest, always applying a nonpartisan, fact-based approach to solving today’s most challenging problems. Our founders—sons and daughters of Joseph Newton Pew Sr. and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew—granted the organization flexibility to evolve as times changed. And so, over the past seven decades, Pew has transformed itself: growing from a small family philanthropy to a global nonprofit organization that conducts research, operates programs, and informs public policy.

On Pew’s “After the Fact” podcast, our president and CEO, Rebecca W. Rimel, discusses Pew’s history; our approach to public service; the role of facts, data, and trust in policymaking; and her 35 years of leadership at Pew:

“I say to the staff here, we have to lead with our heads, not our hearts. We all have particular areas we’re interested in or particular passions, and that’s a good thing. But when it comes down to making a decision about how to use the resources left by the Pew family and the other donors who support our work now, we need, first and foremost, to look at the facts and data and have that guide our decision. You need to be able to stand behind those facts and data.”

– Rebecca W. Rimel, President and CEO, The Pew Charitable Trusts

The podcast also includes an important discussion with two veteran lawmakers from Indiana—former Representative Lee Hamilton and former Senator Richard Lugar—about what is needed to find the middle ground in public policy today.

Seventy years of positive change—working with partners that share a commitment to facts and data, nonpartisanship, and measurable results. That’s Pew’s tradition of success. More information about our history can be found in “Pew: 70 Years of Committed Public Service” from Pew’s Trust magazine.