IHN: Larry, tell us about the Institute for Humanist Studies.

LJ: IHS is composed of two parts. One is, we develop our own programs to promote Humanism.
These are not meant to compete with any other organiations’ programs but are designed to fill
a need that is not being met. The other part is the IHS Fund. Through this fund we put a
significant part of our resources into supporting the programs of
other organisations.


IHN: Can you perhaps tell us first about your in-house programs, the programs that you run yourselves?

LJ: We are creating a distancelearning program called the Continuum of Humanist Education, or COHE. It consists of a series of on-line courses on Humanism from a number of perspectives: history, psychology,
philosophy, and activism. Each course has a number of levels. The idea behind COHE is to reach the maximum number of people and to address as many of their needs for knowledge about Humanism as possible. Some, for example may only be looking for a cursory knowledge – an introduction - which we offer free.

The other modules – all of which are low cost – cover Humanism in more depth. The first modules will be ready in the Summer of 2002. We plan to develop further modules in the future. The more advanced modules will be at the level of college courses in philosophy and we would hope to get accreditation for these courses.

The other main activity of the Institute is the Humanist Internet Project or HIP. The purpose is to help Humanist organisations use the technology of the Internet. The Internet is redefining how information is distributed. It enables people and organisations at very low cost to get their word out to the public – it opens a gateway to the world for them. So we offer web sites hosting free of charge. We are currently hosting 40 or 50 web sites. The other part of the Humanist Internet Project is to create a Humanist World site
to serve as a resource to humanist and other free-thought organisations around the world.

IHS has also underwritten the publication of a Humanist textbook written by Lewis Vaughn suitable for college level philosophy and religion courses. The book is called Humanism and Heresy and will be published by Rowman and Littlefield


IHN: Can we come now to the IHS Fund. This will have a huge impact for a number of developing Humanist organisations around the world. How do you see the priorities for this fund? What are the key issues you are trying to address?

LJ: Well, the Fund is governed by a committee made up of significant donors to IHS. I believe that donors are investors – in Humanism as well as in IHS. As investors I felt they should be invited to participate in the governance of the IHS Fund. At our first board meeting we agreed on guidelines for awarding grants.
We have about $110,000 per year to distribute initially but we are hoping this will grow as we attract new donors.

In general we want to support projects that increase awareness about humanism, that teach people about humanism, and defend and protect the interests of non-believers. In addition, the committee favours programs that have the potential to become selfsustaining and programs that can serve as a template for other organisations – that are portable to other organisations to amplify the effect of the grants. We are also particularly interested in supporting student proposals. We are keen to bring young people into the movement. They are our future. We favour programmes that foster co-operation and collaboration between organisations and we are also interested in programs that use new technologies to promote humanism effectively.


IHN: Larry, can you tell us something about your background?

LJ: I was born into an atheist family. My father was a strident atheist. I didn’t discover Humanism until rather late in life. In the mid 1980s I discovered a local Humanist group in Albany, the Capital District Humanist Society. I then connected with the Council for Secular Humanism. I eventually served on the CDHS board and became the executive director from 1998 to 2000. I also serve on the board of the Center for Inquiry and I am treasurer of CSICOP. So I have an interest in both Skepticism and Humanism.

IHS is funded by an annual grant from the National Philanthropic Trust. This is a donor-advised fund used by the Jones family as our charitable vehicle. Out of that fund I can direct about $110,000 a year to IHS. We use that money strictly to fund other organisations. We do not comingle the funds with other operational accounts of IHS. It is strictly segregated into an IHS Fund account. The other expenses of IHS are funded by private donations. I supplied most of the seed money but I am happy to say that we are beginning to attract the attention of other secular philanthropists who have so far this year provided a further $97,000. It is my hope that we can double that by next year. The reason being that by the summer of this year we should have a product COHE. I call this our dot-com stage. Lots of ideas, lots of promise. No product. But we will have a product shortly and the HIP program is going full bore.


IHN: You are known as someone who likes to keep in the background, hide your light. You have been quoted as saying –with Harry S. Truman – ‘It is remarkable how much you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.’

LJ: Well, I have adopted that as the company motto. What motivated me really to start this organisation was the disarray I found in the humanist and freethought movement in the United States. It is a splintered, competing collection of organisations that are not very effective in countering the onslaught of the religious right -which is more organised and far better funded than we are. And so I wanted to create an organisation that used its resources rather uniquely.

One, we develop our own programs and two, we support the best work of others. We utilise a great part of our resources to help others develop and run programs, who can develop and run them better than we can. We are a very small organisation and have limited human resources. There are other organizations with greater resources and special skills that can better run and develop programs than we can. And so we support them rather than try and compete with them and waste resources. So I think it’s an efficient way to allocate resources.


IHN: I am aware of a number of US foundations that restrict their giving to American causes. What gave you your interest in the wider world, in international issues?

LJ: Humanism is an important global concept. I feel very strongly that if the world were more humanistic it would be a better world. We support programs and proposals on their merits. We don’t provide support to organisations for their capital programs or to fatten their bottom line. We are looking at projects and programs that teach people about humanism, that make the public more aware of humanism and spread these ideas to a wider public.


IHN: Can you tell us something about your plans for IHS for the future?

LJ: Once we get COHE up and running I would like to expand the direction of IHS into the political arena. If Humanism is ever going to have any influence in the world it must influence policy makers. So we are considering hiring a full-time lobbyist. We are well located here in the capital of New York State.

Our activities will be at first local – in New York State-, but after we have gotten some experience, I would hope that in the future we will have a lobbyist in Washington. I can’t stress enough the importance of being able to influence policy makers. I think it’s a very important project and we are planning to do that in the very near future.

Another direction in which we want to develop IHS is to make it into a think tank where the media can come when they are seeking a humanist or secular perspective on a current issue – an information resource. I think we are uniquely positioned to do that because in our on-line curriculum we have scholars around the world, writing courses for us so we have a pool of experts from which we can obtain statements and have interviews done. So we have a unique resource of expertise available to us.

We also want to restart a program, a rapid response network. This goes along with our mission of
protecting other free-thought organisations and individuals. It is important to be able to respond rapidly to bills and other initiatives that come up say in the legislature. We need to be able to respond in a clear and timely fashion in order to influence the debate.


IHN: You have got quite an ambitious program there. How long will it take you to put this in place?

LJ: Well, we need more funding. I provided all of the seed money for this organisation but other donations are beginning to come in. As soon as the money comes in we will put it to work.


IHN: If I were somebody working with a small group of humanists in a country in say south-east Asia or Africa and looking for support, how would I approach you?

We have an application form online at www.humaniststudies.org. Go to that. It’s a fairly simple application form. Fill it out. Then there is a place to further explain your project – add a page or two of description. If we need any more information on it we will request it from you. Our IHS Fund committee meets once a year in January and we will consider these projects. So it’s a one-year cycle.

In 2002 we had well over $500,000 worth of requests. Unfortunately we only had $110,000 to give away. But it is my hope that secular philanthropists will discover that the IHS Fund is a unique way to fulfil their philanthropic goals -because we have everything in place to research proposals. The IHS Fund committee oversees the proposals and we offer technical assistance to the recipients to help ensure that their projects are a success. We are also trying to put in place a donor-recipient clearing-house. We need to collaborate with other donor organisations so that donor resources can be effectively allocated: to prevent double-dipping and so recipients won’t need to make lots of applications to lots of different donors.

I am hoping that within a decade the fund will be able to distribute a million dollars a year to the freethought and humanist movement. If we can attract enough outside money, and I am hoping we can, I think it is realisable. And with that kind of injection of energy into the movement I think we can accomplish a great deal.


IHN: Larry, one final question: what was your personal motivation in setting up the Institute and the fund?

LJ: Basic to the reason I am doing this is that I would like to see a time – perhaps not in my lifetime – when people of non belief will be accepted; when our opinions and perspectives will be accepted and influential. In short, I would like to see a time when Humanism has influence in the world. And I hope in some small way that what we are doing is contributing to that effort.