Pew Charitable Trusts

The Pew Charitable Trusts serves the public interest by providing information, advancing policy solutions and supporting civic life. Based in Philadelphia, with an office in Washington, D.C., The Trusts will invest $204 million in fiscal year 2006 to provide organizations and citizens with fact-based research and practical solutions for challenging issues.

In 2004, The Trusts established the Center as a subsidiary to house the six separate information projects that The Trusts had launched during the preceding decade. The move was designed to expand the reach of these information projects and to reduce their administrative cost.

The Trusts provides the vast bulk of the Center's financial support and appoints three of the five voting members of the Center's governing board. However, the Center is solely responsible for its own surveys, reports and findings. In order to preserve the Center's independence and impartiality, The Trusts maintains a wall of separation between its support for the Center's information work and its support for projects that seek to advance policy solutions, just as most newspapers separate their news operation from their editorial pages.

• Read the Trusts' press release announcing the creation of The Pew Research Center.
• Visit The Pew Charitable Trusts Web site.