# Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) **Conservative Partnership Institute** is the **MAGA-aligned 501(c)(3) infrastructure incubator** founded in 2017 by then-Senator [[Jim DeMint]] after his exit from the [[Heritage Foundation]] presidency. CPI's stated mission is to support conservative congressional staff, train conservative leaders, and provide "back-office" administrative support to spin off new conservative organizations. Its actual function is the institutional **back-end of the MAGA-restoration project** — providing legal, accounting, payroll, and shared-staff infrastructure for newer organizations including: - [[Center for Renewing America]] (Russ Vought) - America First Legal ([[Stephen Miller]]) - Personnel Policy Operations - [[Election Integrity Network]] ([[Cleta Mitchell]]) - and a dozen+ other affiliated entities [[Mark Meadows]] (Trump's last White House Chief of Staff) joined CPI as Senior Partner after leaving the White House, helping shape its post-2020 trajectory toward becoming the **central administrative node** of the post-Trump-1.0 conservative ecosystem. CPI provided over half of the [[Center for Renewing America]]'s 2021 revenue and continues to share senior staff (CEO Ed Corrigan, Director Wesley Denton serve at both organizations). The organization has been a major component of [[Project 2025]]'s coalition, contributing to advisory boards and the personnel-database operation. ## Jim DeMint and the Heritage Exit **Jim DeMint** (born September 2, 1951) represented South Carolina in the U.S. House (1999–2005) and Senate (2005–2013), establishing himself as one of the most conservative members of Congress — an early Tea Party champion who backed insurgent primary challengers against establishment-Republican incumbents. DeMint resigned from the Senate in **January 2013** to become **president of the [[Heritage Foundation]]**, a move that was controversial within Heritage from the start. DeMint's tenure (2013–2017) was marked by conflict with Heritage's traditional-policy-research staff over his push toward political activism, grassroots mobilization, and Heritage Action's electoral engagement. The Heritage board forced DeMint out in **April 2017**. DeMint founded CPI in **2017** immediately after his Heritage departure — framing it as an organization that would do what Heritage was unwilling to do: build operational infrastructure for the MAGA-aligned conservative movement rather than produce policy papers for the establishment. ## Incubation Model CPI's institutional innovation is its function as a **back-office incubator** — providing legal incorporation, accounting, payroll, HR, compliance, and shared-staff infrastructure for new conservative organizations that lack the operational capacity to stand up independently. This model allowed rapid proliferation of MAGA-aligned entities without each needing to build independent administrative capacity. Known spinoff and incubated organizations include: **[[Center for Renewing America]]** (CRA) — founded by [[Russell Vought]] (Trump 1.0 OMB director, [[Trump 2.0]] OMB director). CPI provided **over half** of CRA's 2021 revenue. CRA became one of the principal contributors to [[Project 2025]]. **America First Legal** (AFL) — founded by **Stephen Miller** (Trump 1.0 senior advisor), focused on litigation challenging Biden-era executive actions and DEI programs. **Election Integrity Network** — focused on election-administration monitoring, poll-watcher recruitment, and election-law challenges. **Personnel Policy Operations** — the personnel-database and vetting operation that fed into Trump 2.0 appointments (closely related to Project 2025's personnel infrastructure). CPI has incubated or provided back-office support for an estimated **dozen+ additional entities** across the MAGA-infrastructure landscape. ## Shared Staff and Cross-Pollination The organizational boundaries between CPI and its incubated entities are notably porous. **Ed Corrigan** (CPI CEO) and **Wesley Denton** (CPI director) have served in leadership roles at both CPI and CRA simultaneously — a shared-staff arrangement that effectively makes CPI and CRA operationally integrated. This cross-pollination extends to other incubated organizations, creating a network structure where nominally-independent organizations share leadership, funding flows, and institutional infrastructure. ## Mark Meadows **[[Mark Meadows]]** (Trump's last White House Chief of Staff, January 2020–January 2021) joined CPI as **Senior Partner** after leaving the White House. Meadows's involvement shaped CPI's post-2020 trajectory toward becoming the central administrative node of the post-Trump-1.0 ecosystem. Meadows was subsequently indicted in **Georgia** (Fulton County, August 2023) as part of the election-interference RICO case and was held in **contempt of Congress** by the House Select Committee investigating January 6 (December 2021, referred to DOJ; DOJ declined to prosecute). His CPI role placed him at the institutional center of both the MAGA-infrastructure-building project and the legal-exposure landscape of the post-January-6 period. ## Hill-Staffer Training CPI operates a **Congressional Staff Training Program** that recruits, trains, and places conservative staffers in Republican congressional offices — particularly in offices aligned with the **[[House Freedom Caucus]]**. The program functions as an alternative to the traditional congressional-staffer pipeline (which CPI characterizes as producing establishment-oriented staff), providing MAGA-aligned offices with ideologically-vetted personnel. The training program includes policy workshops, legislative-process training, and networking with movement-conservative organizations. ## Funding CPI's donor base includes major conservative foundations and individual donors: the **Mercer family** (Robert and [[Rebekah Mercer]]), the **Wilks brothers** (Dan and [[Farris Wilks]], Texas fracking billionaires), the **[[Bradley Foundation]]**, and donors through **[[DonorsTrust]]** (the dark-money intermediary). CPI's revenue grew substantially in the post-2020 period — from approximately **$9 million** in 2019 to over **$45 million** in 2022, reflecting the organization's rapid expansion as the MAGA-infrastructure back-end. ## KB Significance CPI is the **central administrative node** of the post-Trump-1.0 MAGA-infrastructure ecosystem — the organization that provides the operational back-end for the constellation of newer organizations ([[Center for Renewing America]], America First Legal, Election Integrity Network, Personnel Policy Operations) that collectively constitute the MAGA movement's institutional capacity. The DeMint-Heritage-CPI trajectory illustrates the factional-institutional dynamics of the contemporary right: DeMint was expelled from the traditional-conservative infrastructure (Heritage) and built the MAGA-aligned alternative. The CPI-CRA shared-staff arrangement and the Meadows connection place CPI at the intersection of the infrastructure-building and legal-exposure threads of the post-2020 conservative landscape. ## See Also - [[Center for Renewing America]] - [[Mark Meadows]] - [[Project 2025]] - [[Heritage Foundation]] - [[Dark Money Ecosystem]]