# Leadership Institute The Leadership Institute (LI) is a conservative training organization founded in 1979 by activist Morton Blackwell and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It teaches what it calls "political technology" — the practical mechanics of campaigns, activism, and media — with a stated mission to "identify, recruit, train, and place conservatives in government, politics, and the media." It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit reporting roughly $45 million in revenue (2023), and says it has trained more than 160,000 people since its founding. ## Reach and Alumni LI runs dozens of training seminars at its Arlington headquarters and around the country. Its alumni network spans the conservative establishment — figures such as Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, and [[James O'Keefe]] have passed through its programs. The Institute also runs Campus Reform, a website that spotlights what it characterizes as liberal bias in higher education, and it sits on the advisory board of [[Project 2025]], the Heritage Foundation–led blueprint for reshaping the federal government under a second Trump term. ## The DeAnna Connection The Leadership Institute is the bridge between mainstream movement conservatism and the radical fringe in [[Kevin DeAnna]]'s biography. After college, DeAnna took a job at LI and founded [[Youth for Western Civilization]] soon after — using a mainstream conservative training base as the platform from which to build a more radical campus organization. He left LI around 2012 for World Net Daily, even as he was secretly writing for white nationalist outlets. The episode illustrates a recurring pattern documented by researchers of the alt-right: established conservative institutions serving, wittingly or not, as incubators and cover for figures who pushed further right. ## See Also - [[Kevin DeAnna]] — LI employee who founded YWC during his tenure - [[Youth for Western Civilization]] — launched from LI - [[Project 2025]] — LI is an advisory-board member