🔎 The 4 signs of a highly effective think tank

Back in 2018, we ran a survey asking people in the US and the UK if they knew what a think tank was. Roughly half said yes. We were sceptical, so we ran another survey—this time asking them to actually name one.

The numbers plummeted. Only 9% of Americans and less than 4% of Brits could correctly name a think tank. Topping the ranking in the US was the Heritage Foundation, named by just shy of 6% of Americans.

There is a long-standing debate about whether a think tank’s function is to merely inform policy or to actively influence it. Todd Moss, today’s guest, has a clear view, and given that he’s written pieces like “Death to the policy report” and “How to get sh*t done in Washington”, you can perhaps guess what that view is.

Todd cites Heritage as the poster child of the influencing think tank. In the late 2010s, Heritage was on our list of organisations to visit every year in Washington. On one of those trips, I toured their communications department.

The department had a clear raison d'être, backed by the explicit support of senior management (‘superb communications’ was the second of the organisation’s three goals). They invested in the physical infrastructure needed to influence—like an on-site studio so analysts could go live on TV in minutes—as well as in message testing for their core audiences and persuadables. It was a real-world example of what Todd argues in today’s interview: communications cannot be a sales department bolted onto the end of a research project.

This is where the ‘informers’ lose out to the ‘influencers’. If you aren’t going to invest in persuading people of a specific point of view, well, someone else probably will.

Tom

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Policy Unstuck with Todd Moss, Founder and Executive Director of the Energy for Growth Hub.

The difference between insights, and useful insights

In the early 2000s I was at the Center for Global Development, and everyone was doing cross‑country growth regressions to look at whether aid works and whether it produces economic growth. Everyone was running these complicated statistical models and publishing the results in regression tables.

Then I went into the State Department and not once did I see a regression table. It was unthinkable to put a regression table in front of a policymaker. 

When I came out I thought, ‘Okay, this work is genuinely insightful, but the way we present it has to be completely different if we want it to be useful.’

Think tanks exist to change things

If a think tank is there purely to inform, then converting a regression table into a clear insight could be enough. But if it is there to have an impact, then it has to take one more step by explaining the likely implications of different courses of action or inaction. 

It’s a good example of the tension in the think tank world between the people who want to simply provide objective analysis, and the people who want to use research to sway policy in a particular direction. 

Tevi Troy wrote a lovely article, ‘Devaluing the Think Tank,’ that tells the history of this through the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. One of them was built on the idea of simply providing good information; the other was built to go to the next step and affect policy. 

Heritage is now by far the most influential think tank in the United States. That tells you something.

Reports and events are often credibility theatre

Reports and high‑profile events are a way that people signal credibility: ‘I’m on a stage with this senior official’, or ‘I’m on a stage with this billionaire.’ That can be useful in some ways, but a lot of the time events exist to produce the photo opportunity, not a real world outcome.

It’s a similar challenge when it comes to media. If your target audience is readers of the New York Times or the BBC, then getting on the front page is a good metric. But that might not help get you to your policy goal; it might only get you to your self‑promotion goal. 

Those are two very different things, and they are easy to confuse when the coverage is flattering. It all comes back to the fundamental questions of who is your audience? And are you actually reaching them?

Comms is not a sales department bolted onto a research department

A lot of think tanks think about communications as sales. You do product development (the clever paper) and then you hand it off to the comms people to go and sell it. They write the press release, they do the tweet, they organise the launch. 

That model does not work.

Communications has to be far upstream in the decision‑making process. From the outset, you need to be thinking about your audience, the problem you are actually trying to solve, and the format to get to your desired outcome. If you make those decisions only at the end, your product will be wrong for your purpose.

The job of a think tank executive is branding and fundraising

When I started the Energy for Growth Hub, my first board chair was Sheila Herrling, an absolute maven in organisational effectiveness. She knows I am a policy nerd and love getting into the details, so she could see what was coming. 

I remember her grabbing my arm and saying: ‘All right. You’re running this new org. You have two jobs: branding and fundraising. That is the job of the executive director. You can play around with all that other stuff, that’s great, I know you love it, but remember: branding and fundraising.’

I still spend the majority of my time on those two things. Those are the two things that determine whether the organisation survives, grows, attracts the people it needs, and, ultimately, can have impact.

Four things to look for when you pick a think tank

If you’re a foundation looking for an effective think tank partner, I’d look for four things.

First, is evidence‑based and high quality work. It has to start here. 

Second, what is their approach? How are they using research to change the problem? How do they do problem identification, and why are they picking this problem over another? They should be able to explain that in a clear, compelling way.

Third, their positioning. How are they actually positioned to reach their audience? Are they former government officials? Do they know how their targets think? Do they have a track record of reaching the people who can act?

Fourth, they should be able to tell you about their past wins. Not just ‘we proposed this and it happened.’ That is great, but so what? How did it happen? How did the idea evolve over time? How did they overcome obstacles? What lessons did they draw? You want a reflective think tank that is constantly learning, not just a good data nerd. 

Learning is underappreciated. Everyone can claim credit for a policy change after it’s happened. The question is whether the organisation can walk you through the relationships, the pivots, the moments where the idea almost died. 

If they can’t, you are likely just buying a press release.

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