Woodrow Wilson Foundation

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation was an educational non-profit created in 1921, organized under the laws of New York, for the "perpetuation of Wilson's ideals" via periodic grants to worthy groups and individuals. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the chair of the group's governing National Committee, coordinating fundraising activity of parallel groups in each of the 48 states.

The group sought to gather a $1 million endowment fund, the interest on which was to pay for the group's cash awards. A national fundraising drive to raise the endowment was launched on January 16, 1922, but despite extensive organization and relentless publicity only half the financial target was raised by February 15. With its medal and endowment to allow for annual financial prizes, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in its initial iteration resembled the Nobel Foundation and its Nobel Prizes, albeit on a smaller financial scale.

Beginning in 1963 the Woodrow Wilson Foundation financed publication of Wilson's collected works and related documents, a 69-volume series entitled The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. The difficulty and expense of this nearly 30-year project drained the energy and finances of the organization, which was terminated in 1993 — one year before completion of the Wilson Papers project.

The original idea for establishment of an endowed fund to make financial awards to individuals and groups best advancing the ideals of Wilsonianism was credited to Mrs. Charles E. Simonson of New York, who was previously active in a women's group called the Political Equality Club of Richmond County. The fund was envisioned as a way to make permanent the memory and legacy of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States from 1913 to 1920.

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation was provisionally established on December 23, 1920, with formal organization completed at a meeting held in New York City on March 15, 1921. The organization was established independently of former President Woodrow Wilson but named in his honor by organizers, who pointed to Wilson having "further the cause of human freedom" and for having been "instrumental in pointing out effective methods for the cooperation of the liberal forces of mankind throughout the world."

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