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January 23, 2004 – Present

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For more than two decades, the International Foundation for World Freedom (IFWF) has evolved through a simple but enduring principle: when people face a barrier, understanding the barrier is the first step toward creating a meaningful solution.

The history of IFWF is therefore not simply a chronology of programs.

It is a story of accumulated experience.

Each program grew from something that IFWF observed in the real world. Each experience revealed a new need. Each new need led to new knowledge, and that knowledge eventually became another program, another partnership, another field of work.

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Over 22 years, IFWF's work has moved from direct community assistance to in-kind philanthropy, from in-kind philanthropy to financial literacy, from financial literacy to economic research, and from economic research to the practical education of economists and researchers.

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The story began on January 23, 2004, when IFWF was established.

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The Beginning: Working With Communities

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From its earliest years, IFWF worked with communities and individuals facing difficult transitions, including immigrants and refugees.

Over time, IFWF learned that people arriving in the United States often needed much more than one-time assistance. They needed practical support, access to resources, trusted relationships, and eventually the knowledge necessary to understand and navigate an unfamiliar society.

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One of the most important chapters in this development began with the creation of Products4Home.

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Products4Home: When a Product Became a Beginning

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In 2014, IFWF joined Good360 and began developing Products4Home as a large-scale in-kind product distribution program.

The program was built to provide essential household products to refugee families, immigrants, individuals, and eventually other nonprofit organizations.

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The largest donor to Products4Home from 2014 through 2022 was Bed Bath & Beyond.

The scale of the donations required more than simply finding recipients. IFWF had to develop an entire operational system for moving donated products from corporations to the people and organizations who needed them.

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The system involved:

Donations → Transportation → Storage → Sorting → Distribution

U-Haul provided annual support through weekly truck services, helping IFWF transport donated products.

A1 Storage provided storage space where products could be received, stored, and sorted before distribution.

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The network of corporate donors expanded as well. Beginning in 2015, additional major companies and retail brands participated, including Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Home Depot, Guess, Guess by Marciano, and Macy's.

By 2017, IFWF had expanded Products4Home beyond direct assistance to individuals and families. The organization began distributing products in bulk to other charitable organizations as well.

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Weekly bulk pickups and distributions became part of the program's routine, and IFWF developed the capacity to distribute essentially all of the products it received through its network of individuals and nonprofit organizations.

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But behind the logistics were human beings.

And those human beings changed the direction of IFWF.

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The Refugee Families

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I remember the first days of distributing products from Bed Bath & Beyond to refugee families.

Every person who came to us was a refugee.

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They were deeply frightened. Many had survived armed conflicts and had lost family members and everything they had known. They had arrived in a completely unfamiliar country, often with almost nothing.

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They did not speak English.

Many were so frightened that some were even afraid of me. I was there to help them, but they did not yet know who I was or why I was giving them things.

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To communicate with the families, I often had to bring translators.

There were women with small children who were barely dressed. There were children sleeping on open floors in apartments provided for refugee families through the City of Glendale.

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The families often had almost nothing inside those apartments.

Sometimes there was not even a single cup in the home.

Sometimes a mother did not have a towel with which to bathe her child.

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The donated products were not luxuries.

A towel mattered.

A blanket mattered.

A pillow mattered.

A bed mattered.

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These were the ordinary objects that helped transform an empty apartment into a place where a family could begin a new life.

I remember one woman in particular.

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She was a refugee whose native language was Arabic. At that time, I knew a little Arabic, enough to greet her in her own language.

After I gave her towels, blankets, and pillows, she began to pray.

I began repeating after her.

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For those moments, we genuinely prayed together.

There was no longer a language barrier between us.

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There were simply two women standing together.

I have never forgotten that moment.'

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The First Night in a New Home

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At some point, I learned from the City of Glendale about its support for newly arrived refugees, including apartments where eligible families could receive three months of free rent.

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The City later sent IFWF a beautiful letter of appreciation for our work.

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Learning about the housing support made me think about what happened next.

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A family could receive an apartment.

But what would be inside it?

What would happen on the first night?

A family could have a roof over its head and still have nowhere to sleep.

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A child could have a safe apartment but no bed.

A mother could have a new home but no blanket or pillow for her child.

I began keeping supplies in our Glendale storage facility for approximately 50 families.

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The idea was simple.

When a newly arrived refugee family moved into one of these apartments, I wanted IFWF to be able to respond immediately.

I could open the storage and provide the family with new, high-quality bedding from Bed Bath & Beyond.

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The children would not have to sleep on a bare floor that night.

The family could have pillows.

They could have blankets.

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They could have bedding.

They could begin their first night in their new home with at least some sense of comfort and dignity.

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For me, that was one of the most rewarding parts of Products4Home.

We were not simply distributing surplus products.

We were creating a bridge between two systems of support.

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The City of Glendale helped provide a place for a refugee family to begin again.

IFWF helped make that place feel like a home.

And because we kept supplies in reserve, we were ready when a family arrived.

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We did not know their names.

We did not know when they would arrive.

We did not know what they had survived.

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But we knew that when they came, we would be ready.

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The Question Behind the Products

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There was another moment that changed the direction of IFWF.

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One of the refugee women tried to communicate something to me.

Her native language was Arabic, and she spoke almost no English. I could not understand exactly what she was saying.

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Then she made a gesture with her hand, rubbing her index finger against her thumb—the gesture I understood as meaning money.

I realized that she was asking me something about money.

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I do not remember her exact words.

I remember the gesture.

And I suddenly understood something much larger.

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These families did not only need products.

They needed to understand the country they had arrived in.

They needed to know that there were banks.

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They needed to understand how people kept their money, opened accounts, paid bills, used credit cards, and managed their financial lives.

They needed to understand the economic institutions around them.

That small gesture became a clue.

I realized that IFWF could not stop at giving people things.

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We had to give people knowledge.

The question was no longer simply:

What can we give this family?

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It became:

What does this family need to know to build a life here?

That question became one of the foundations of IFWF's financial literacy work.

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The Federal Reserve and the Beginning of Financial Literacy Education

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In 2019, IFWF began developing its Financial Literacy Educational Program for New Refugees and Immigrants.

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IFWF reached out to the Federal Reserve for educational support and resources.

The response became an important moment in the organization's history.

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The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland provided IFWF with educational publications in bulk, including materials explaining the U.S. banking system and the history of the U.S. dollar.

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IFWF distributed approximately 90% of the materials it received to its community and to more than 50 local charitable organizations.

The Federal Reserve's educational resources became part of a broader effort to help newcomers understand the financial institutions and systems of their new country.

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The experience reinforced something IFWF had been learning for years:

Material assistance can help a person begin. Knowledge helps a person move forward.

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The End of an Era

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From 2014 through 2022, Bed Bath & Beyond remained the largest donor supporting Products4Home.

In 2022, the closure of Bed Bath & Beyond, combined with the broader disruption caused by the COVID-19 period, had a major impact on the Products4Home program and its supply chain.

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The end of that era marked an important transition.

But the knowledge IFWF had gained did not disappear.

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Years of managing large-scale in-kind donations had taught the organization how corporate philanthropy works, how nonprofit resource networks operate, how in-kind grants create value, how products move through nonprofit channels, and how organizations can cooperate to meet community needs.

The experience became part of IFWF's institutional knowledge.

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From Financial Literacy to Economic Understanding

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Beginning in the early 2020s, IFWF's financial literacy work continued to develop while the organization's interests expanded.

The questions became broader.

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How does the U.S. economy work?

How do financial institutions interact with individuals and businesses?

How do nonprofits finance their programs?

How do grants and philanthropy affect communities?

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How do businesses obtain capital?

How do economic policies affect real people?

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These questions gradually led IFWF toward economic research.

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The organization began developing economic studies and research projects, including work examining the state of the U.S. economy.

Financial inclusion, economic opportunity, and economic understanding became increasingly interconnected parts of IFWF's work.

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From Economic Research to Fellowship

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As IFWF's economic research activities developed, the organization began bringing economists and researchers into its work.

The Postgraduate Research & Policy Fellowship emerged as an environment where researchers could contribute to economic research and policy work while gaining professional experience.

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IFWF's research activities expanded, including collaborative work, economic analysis, and the development of policy publications such as Policy Brief No. 1, From Barriers to Blueprints.

The organization was no longer only teaching people how to navigate the economy.

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It was studying the economy.

And it was beginning to train the people who would study and explain it.

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The Next Discovery: Economists Need Practical Economics, Too

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The newest chapter of IFWF's story emerged from an unexpected realization.

Highly educated economists—including economists with advanced degrees and PhDs—can understand economic theory and still have limited exposure to the practical operation of the U.S. economy.

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A university may teach economics.

It may teach monetary policy, econometrics, macroeconomics, microeconomics, or financial theory.

But students may have little opportunity to see how businesses actually obtain financing, how factoring works, how equipment financing is structured, how nonprofits raise funds, how in-kind philanthropy operates, or how credit unions and banks interact with communities.

IFWF has spent 22 years learning these things through direct experience.

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The organization has worked with refugees.

It has distributed millions of dollars in donated products.

It has worked with major corporations.

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It has operated within the in-kind philanthropy ecosystem.

It has worked with nonprofits and charitable organizations.

It has developed financial literacy programs.

It has communicated with the Federal Reserve.

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It has studied economic issues.

It has worked with economists and researchers.

It has engaged with credit unions and other financial institutions.

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It has worked with grants and fundraising.

It has worked with businesses seeking financing.

Now IFWF is beginning to bring these experiences together into a new form of practical economic education.

Fellows and researchers can learn not only about economic theory, but also about the real economic world around them.

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They can study real business cases.

They can learn about commercial financing, including factoring, equipment financing, sale-leaseback structures, and other forms of business capital.

They can learn how nonprofits operate, how grants are developed, how fundraising works, and how in-kind philanthropy creates economic and social value.

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They can learn from credit unions and banks.

They can study the role of financial institutions.

They can observe how economic concepts become real decisions affecting real people and organizations.

In this way, IFWF is developing a model in which research, education, and practical experience reinforce one another.

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Twenty-Two Years of Accumulated Knowledge

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The history of IFWF is therefore a story of evolution.

It began with community support.

It developed into large-scale in-kind philanthropy.

It moved from products to financial literacy.

It moved from financial literacy to economic education.

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It moved from economic education to research.

It moved from research to fellowship.

And now it is moving toward practical economic education for the next generation of economists and researchers.

The circle has come back to where it began.

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In the beginning, IFWF met people who had arrived in America without understanding the economic system around them.

Today, IFWF works with economists who have spent years studying economics but may still need opportunities to understand how that system operates in practice.

The audiences are different.

The educational needs are different.

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But the mission is connected.

Understanding creates opportunity.

For more than 22 years, IFWF has learned that people cannot fully participate in a society they do not understand.

A refugee may need to learn how to open a bank account.

A newcomer may need to understand credit.

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A nonprofit may need to understand grants and fundraising.

A business owner may need to understand financing.

A researcher may need to understand the practical economic environment behind the data.

An economist may need to see how theory becomes practice.

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Each is a different part of the same larger system.

And IFWF's work has increasingly become about helping people understand that system.

The story that began with a refugee family receiving a blanket has grown into a broader educational mission.

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The organization that once asked, "What does this family need tonight?" now asks a larger question:

"What does this person need to understand in order to build a better future?"

That question continues to guide IFWF.

And after 22 years, the story is still being written.