The FREOPP Brain Trust: Melanie Hildreth
Melanie Hildreth helped build one of America’s great liberal institutions. As an advisor to FREOPP, she wants to help do it again.
Melanie grew up in Cadillac, Michigan, a small town in the northwestern part of the state. “The area is primarily family farms and small businesses, which fosters a special blend of commitment to community and belief in self-sufficiency,” she says. “Until I moved away, I didn’t realize quite how rural it was. I thought I was the ‘city kid’ from a town of 10,000 people, not a farm kid like most of my friends.”
Melanie left Michigan for college at DePauw University in Indiana, where she majored in Philosophy, graduated summa cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Right after college, she moved to Washington and joined the think tank world, as the development assistant at the Bill of Rights Institute. “I have always been interested in ideas, and I was enthusiastic about the prospect of being at a place that put ideas into action,” she says. “But I didn’t actually know what ‘development’ in the nonprofit context meant. I graduated with a philosophy degree right after the tech bubble burst, so I applied for any job that had the word ‘assistant’ in it and crossed my fingers.”
Melanie found herself absorbed by how fundraising marries the idealism of nonprofits with the business necessity of keeping the lights on. “I was hooked,” she says. Melanie went on to join the Institute for Justice, one of the country’s leading public interest law firms, where she spent 16 years and ultimately become its Vice President for External Relations.
When Melanie joined the Institute for Justice, it had an annual budget of $7 million. Today, IJ is a national law firm with offices in seven states, and an annual budget of $38 million. Melanie led three institution-building campaigns at IJ that raised more than $125 million, resources that allowed IJ to more than triple its staff, file hundreds of cases on behalf of thousands of clients, and argue before the U.S. Supreme Court 10 times, winning landmark rulings on educational choice, civil forfeiture, and economic liberty.
“IJ gave me a chance to be part of so many of the different pieces that go into building a world-class organization,” reflects Melanie. “I read and wrote about the law and how it affects real people, built a planned giving program from scratch, ran three challenge grants, managed a team, launched a podcast, edited a magazine, and traveled the country to talk with some of the most thoughtful and dedicated philanthropists in America.”
As a Senior Advisor to FREOPP’s leadership team, Melanie shares her experience in strategic planning, executive and donor communications, project management, and initiating and overseeing organizational growth and development initiatives — all to help FREOPP advance our mission to expand economic opportunity to those who least have it. “FREOPP is tackling the issues that matter most to ordinary Americans. And it’s nimble and entrepreneurial in a way that allows it to respond to the needs of the moment, as it did when it was one of the only organizations making the evidence-based case against lockdowns and school closures during the pandemic. That’s what allows it to have such an outsized impact, and it’s exciting to be part of that.”
Follow Melanie on Twitter: @melaniehildreth
