Pioneer Institute

Pioneer Institute
Basic facts
Location:	Boston, Massachusetts
Type:	501(c)(3)
Top official:	Jim Stergios, Executive Director
Founder(s):	Lovett C. Peters
Year founded:	1988
Website:	Official website

The Pioneer Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Massachusetts. The group is a think tank that "values an America where our citizenry is well-educated and willing to test our beliefs based on facts and the free exchange of ideas, and committed to liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise."

Background

Lovell C. Peters, an entrepreneur with a background in energy and finance, founded the Pioneer Institute in 1988. The organization says Peters was inspired by Sir Antony Fisher, the British political activist who was involved in founding the Manhattan Institute and the Pacific Research Institute.

As of September 2025, the organization's mission was "to develop and communicate dynamic ideas that advance prosperity and a vibrant civic life in Massachusetts and beyond." It described its vision of success as "a state and nation where our people can prosper and our society thrive because we enjoy world-class options in education, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent."

Leadership

As of September 2025, the following individuals held leadership positions at the Pioneer Institute:

• Jim Stergios, executive director
• Mary Z. Connaughton, chief operating officer & director of government transparency
• Jamie Gass, director of the center for school reform
• William Smith, senior fellow and director of the Pioneer Life Sciences Initiative
• Andrew Horgan, chief development officer
• Katie Martinez Castellano, director of individual giving
• Amie O'Hearn, director of communications and media relations

As of September 2025, the following individuals sat on the Pioneer Institute's board of directors:

• Adam Portnoy, chairman
• Bruce Johnstone, vice chairman
• James Joslin, treasurer
• Jim Stergios, executive director
• Mary Connaughton, clerk
• Brian Broderick
• Michael Brown
• Gary Campbell
• Frederic Clifford
• Mark Cohen
• Kyla De Asla
• Andrew Davis
• Drew Davis
• Chris di Bonaventura
• Brackett Denniston
• Ed Glaeser
• Charles Hewitt, III
• Jake Jacobson
• Sara Johnson
• Mary Myers Kauppila
• Robert Mashal
• M. Holt Massey
• Mark V. Rickabaugh
• Roger Servison
• Peter Wilde
• Stephen Fantone, chairman emeritus
• Diane Schmalensee, chairwoman emerita

Work and activities

Legislative and policy work

The institute produces white papers, policy briefs, amicus briefs, and other policy-related documents. Its work includes city-level analyses of Boston policy, state-level analyses of Massachusetts policy, and analyses of national policy.

As of September 2025, the organization's policy work was sorted into five content areas, most having at least one subdivision:

• PioneerEducation "generates practical ideas that public policymakers, individual schools, and school districts can implement by publishing research that offers constructive recommendations; sponsoring forums supporting school reform; publishing commentary in state and national news outlets; and testifying before the legislature and government agencies on pending education reform issues. Pioneer’s work is built on the premise that the Commonwealth should uphold its constitutional obligations to all our schoolchildren by increasing academic rigor and ensuring the equality of educational opportunity."
  • Common Core: "Since 2009, Pioneer has led the campaign against Common Core national education standards and federal control of K-12 education policy, publishing a series of reports showing that the state’s adoption of national standards weakens the quality of academic content in Massachusetts’ classrooms, and raising serious questions about the legality and the costs of Common Core."
  • School Choice and Competition: Pioneer Institute believes parents and children deserve an alternative to failing district schools. School choice should include a menu of options, including: University partnerships, private management, Commonwealth and Horace Mann public charter schools, pilot schools, vocational-technical schools, scholarships to independent and parochial schools, and interdistrict choice (e.g., METCO)."
  • US History Instruction: "Massachusetts is one of only nine states that do not require students to demonstrate knowledge of history or civics to graduate from high school. The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education postponed making US History an MCAS-tested graduation requirement, citing costs. Middle school social studies departments have been eliminated in recent years, and high schools are replacing history and social science electives with other subjects. The country faces a growing challenge of engaging future generations, including newcomers, in America’s social, economic and civic life. That’s why Pioneer has always championed high academic standards that emphasize content, including instruction in U.S. History and civics."
  • Higher Education: "Rising tuition, growing administrative costs, increased spending on capital projects, and expanded out-of-state enrollment are creating a crisis within higher education. Pioneer Institute seeks to promote greater access to public colleges and universities and a fair regulatory environment for their private counterparts."
• PioneerHealth "explores market-based reforms to rein in the cost and improve the quality of care in Massachusetts. Our healthcare research is focused on state and federal health care reform, Medicaid, and cost containment."
  • Healthcare Price Transparency: "More and more consumers are burdened with high-deductible health insurance plans, yet don’t know what price they are going to be charged for medical services before procedures. At Pioneer, we believe it’s time to end the secrecy. Transparency about medical costs is the key to reducing those costs."
  • State and Federal Healthcare Reform: "Pioneer Institute supports state-level experimentation in health care policy to test and drive the national debate on health care reform. Robust experimentation with welfare reform in the 90’s allowed federal officials to draw important lessons from the successes and failures of a number of states as they crafted a thoughtful national bill."
  • Medicaid Reform: "Across the country, state and local healthcare expenditures have gone from $121 billion in 1993 to more than $285 billion in 2007. The number is expected to reach $565 billion by 2016 – a five-fold increase in 23 years. Building on its research into Massachusetts’ $13 billion liability for employee healthcare benefits, Pioneer will focus on ways for cities and towns to manage their liabilities. At the state level, Pioneer will focus on the cost of Medicaid programs, specifically long-term care and insurance reforms."
  • Affordable, Innovative Care: "Pioneer seeks to refocus the Massachusetts conversation about health care costs away from government-imposed solutions toward market-based state reforms. Few consumer-driven health insurance plans offer good value in Massachusetts due to government restrictions. Pioneer aims to advance affordable, innovative insurance products and greater consumer choice."
• PioneerOpportunity "seeks a business climate in which entrepreneurs and employees benefit from a thriving economy."
  • Tax Competitiveness: "Pioneer seeks to increase pubic awareness of the risks associated with raising taxes and increasing government regulations at a time when businesses across the Commonwealth are really struggling as a result of the COVID pandemic."
• PioneerTransportation "seeks reforms that allow commuters to take full advantage of the coming mobility revolution – with access to a range of affordable and on-demand public and private transportation options, as well as transit-friendly real estate development."
• PioneerPublic: "seeks limited, accountable government by promoting competitive delivery of public services, elimination of unnecessary regulation, and a focus on core government functions. Current initiatives promote reform of public employee pension and health care liabilities, affordable, transportation reform, and government transparency."
  • MassWatch: Government Transparency: "Pioneer Institute’s free resource for promoting citizen engagement in state and local government. Public access to public information. Without that, maintaining a healthy democracy is impossible. In fact, the Massachusetts State Constitution requires that legislators “at all times” be accountable to the public and that the people have the right to “instruct” their legislators. This suite of free websites below allows the public to access vast amounts of information on state and local governments. Each of these tools features user-friendly queries to help you navigate."
  • Criminal Justice: "Pioneer Institute has long supported key reforms of the state’s criminal justice system where a disproportionate share of the state’s incarcerated population are people of color. You can read more about these reforms below, including ending solitary confinement, showcasing solutions to reduce recidivism, expand community policing, programs to reintegrate offenders into the mainstream workforce, ending the shameful practice of using prisons as de facto mental health facilities; and emulating a successful magnet school to ready inner city youth for a career in law enforcement."
  • Municipal Reform: "The Middle Cities Initiative helps the Commonwealth’s older cities facing economic, demographic, and political challenges. The Initiative develops and disseminates concrete policy reforms for local and state officials in four core service areas: Financial management, Education, Economic Development and Public Safety. In addition, the Initiative seeks to reframe the relationship between the state and its older, industrial cities."
  • Unfunded Liabilities: "Pioneer’s research on Massachusetts’ unfunded liabilities seeks to advance pension reforms that provide fair and sustainable retirement support. Our current pension system has enormous unfunded liabilities and provides incentives that are not in line with the private sector. A reformed pension system would limit unfunded liabilities, provide benefits consistent with private sector plans, and offer incentives to attract a qualified state workforce. In 2012-13, we are releasing a ten-part series focusing on this topic."

Notable endorsements

See also: Ballotpedia: Our approach to covering endorsements

This section displays endorsements this organization made in elections within Ballotpedia's coverage scope.

Notable ballot measure endorsements by Pioneer Institute

Measure	Position	Outcome
Massachusetts Question 1, Tax on Income Above $1 Million for Education and Transportation Amendment (2022)  source	Oppose	Approved
Massachusetts Question 2, Repeal Competency Assessment Requirement for High School Graduation Initiative (2024)  source	Oppose	Approved

Affiliations

The Pioneer Institute was, as of September 2025, one of four Massachusetts organizations affiliated with the State Policy Network.

Finances

The following is a breakdown of the Pioneer Institute's revenues and expenses from 2001 to 2023. The information comes from ProPublica.

Pioneer Institute financial data 2001-2003

Year	Revenue	Expenses
2001	$1.8 million	$2.2 million
2002	$1.6 million	$2.0 million
2003	$1.4 million	$1.5 million
2004	$0.6 million	$0.9 million
2005	$1.4 million	$1.1 million
2006*	Unknown	Unknown
2007	$1.3 million	$1.3 million
2008	$1.6 million	$1.2 million
2009	$1.4 million	$1.4 million
2009**	$1.4 million	$1.3 million
2010	$1.4 million	$1.3 million
2011	$1.3 million	$1.5 million
2012	$2.2 million	$1.6 million
2013	$1.7 million	$1.6 million
2014	$1.6 million	$1.7 million
2015	$2.2 million	$1.8 million
2016	$2.5 million	$2.0 million
2017	$2.0 million	$2.1 million
2018	$2.5 million	$2.3 million
2019	$2.5 million	$2.6 million
2020	$3.4 million	$2.4 million
2021	$3.8 million	$2.7 million
2022	$4.2 million	$3.2 million
2023	$4.5 million	$4.1 million

*Financial information for 2006 was not available on ProPublica.
**The Pioneer Institute switched from a September to an October filing schedule in 2009. The second entry for 2009 lists the October filing.

See also

• What is an influencer?

External links

• Pioneer Institute official website
• Pioneer Institute on Facebook
• Pioneer Institute on X
• Pioneer Institute on YouTube
• Pioneer Institute on LinkedIn