Sagamore Institute

WORKING FOR SOCIETY -

Our Story
Our Mission
Our Model
Our Team
Our Anniversary Reports

Our Story

In early 2004, as Dan Coats was preparing to return to the United States following his service as US Ambassador to Germany, he and Jay Hein determined that America needed a think tank based in the heartland’s values and geography. In contrast to the noise and rancor coming from Washington, D.C., Sagamore Institute was formed that same year to tackle difficult issues with civility and focus on solutions not ideology.

Why "Sagamore"?

One of Indiana’s Native American tribes coined the term Sagamore to identify the member who grapples with serious questions, helps build consensus, and offers wisdom and advice. This is exactly the type of think tank we wanted to build: a place that leaned into hard problems with sleeves rolled up alongside public and private leaders to dedicated to making the world a better place.

Why Indianapolis?

It’s been said that if you want to consume community or culture, it’s good to live in great cities like New York or Los Angeles where there is much to partake. But if you want to produce culture or community assets, there is no place better than Indianapolis. Our headquarters city has a rich civic spirit and long tradition of citizen-led innovations.

To further this legacy, Sagamore hosts the annual Indiana Conference on Citizenship. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was among Indiana’s first citizens? His family moved to the Indiana Territory merely weeks before statehood was established in 1816. Lincoln’s legacy has a deep imprint on Sagamore’s citizenship agenda: from his days as a boy reading fireside in our state’s frontier to his heroic efforts to preserve our nation as president, we seek to inspire the next generation of educated and engaged citizens.

"Our main value proposition is moving ideas into action. We do not ask who is for or against certain reforms. We ask how we are going to fix society’s most stubborn problems and sustain our most promising solutions.”

Jay Hein

President

Why COhatch?

Work Reimagined

The COhatch mission is to transform communities and rebuild lives. Sagamore is forming a joint venture to advance that mission in Indiana, Ohio, Texas, Florida and other states.

We moved our HQ office to COhatch Indianapolis for three reasons:

Community: We will use multiple COhatch locations in Indianapolis to serve reach wider across our HQ city
Impact: We will serve as COhatch’s social impact partner to help the company improve lives in dozens of cities
Network: We will help grow and manage a network of impact investors and entrepreneurs dedicated to improving communities across the Unites States

Why Charlottesville?

In tandem with establishing our headquarters in Indianapolis, we opened a field office in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2004. The home of Thomas Jefferson seemed like the perfect complement to our heartland roots since we are dedicated to extending national influence from our places of local innovation.

But it was Jefferson’s idea of the “academical village” that resonates even more deeply in Sagamore’s story. His architectural designs called for faculty townhouses to be interspersed with student apartments enabling the transfer of wisdom in community not just the classroom. This mirrors Sagamore’s scholars working alongside citizens across the globe.

Sagamore’s offices in Indiana and Virginia, as well as our “distributed network of scholar-practitioners” advance our mutual commitment to impact and influence.

The Levey Years 2010-2020

Sagamore’s headquarters building was built by Louis Levey in the early 20th century. Mr. Levey was a print shop owner and friends with fellow citizens such as literary giant James Whitcomb Riley and his next door neighbor Charles W. Fairbanks, who served as Teddy Roosevelt’s Vice President.

We enjoy recalling this glorious past while convening important conversations aimed at improving our city, state, and nation.

Our Mission

Founded in 2004 by Dan Coats and Jay Hein, Sagamore builds and implements solutions to society’s biggest problems. Through research, consulting, and impact investing, we fight for a society uplifted by heartland policy innovation, business solutions, and citizen engagement.

Ideas & Impact

"A lot of people in politics and policy admire problems. We admire solutions. Focusing on problems tends to pit one side against the other. A focus on solutions leverages ideas, talent, and capital to accomplish something among partners beyond anything single actors can do on their own."

Jay Hein

President

We live our mission daily in three lanes of action.

Policy

Citizenship

Commonwealth

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Our Model

Ideas. Innovations. Investments.

As an action-oriented think tank, Sagamore advances innovative ideas for real results.

In communities across America, real people are solving real problems in new ways, without regard to labels or ideologies. Unfortunately, far too many innovators work in a vacuum. They are making a difference – whether in the marketplace or their neighborhood – but the ideas and the lessons learned aren’t disseminated for the benefit of other communities, the nation, and the world.

From the nation’s Heartland, Sagamore identifies and supports these innovators, entrepreneurs, practitioners, and experts. We help fill the gap between pervasive problems and sound solutions by connecting the best ideas with leaders who can transform them into smarter policy and improved practice.

Sagamore advances its mission across three lanes of action: ideas, innovations, and investments. They are complementary to one another, and each is required for meaningful impact to be achieved. Ideas expand our possibilities, innovations put those ideas to work, and investments are how we sustain both.

Ideas

Ideas matter. They can improve the human condition and alter the course of history. As a think tank, ideas are our business. Sagamore built on this foundation by forming an expert network of fellows providing independent and innovative research and analysis to public and private sector leaders. But we don’t just uplift scholars – we highlight and support practitioners who are already acting upon their ideas but may not recognize the pioneering idea behind their work.

Innovations

We love ideas, but we care even more about the lives and systems that can be improved through those ideas. That is why we are dedicated to applied research – research that actually puts theories to test in the real world. We’re in communities, getting our hands dirty, working alongside innovative practitioners, learning from them, and measuring the impact of ideas and theories put into practice. This allows us to gain insight into which prescriptions work, which don’t, and why.

Investments

We believe that good business creates a better society. Indeed, enterprise has always given an uplift to the whole population and provided the surest path out of poverty for the most disadvantaged. Sagamore operates an impact investing platform called Commonwealth to offer innovative financial services to expand economic opportunity. Commonwealth’s investors and entrepreneurs advance change on the ground with market solutions, performance philanthropy, and upgrades to nonprofit business practice.