Year of Grant: 2016

Location of Organization: Austria

Fieldwork: Various countries across Europe

Students for Liberty (SFL) is an American libertarian non-profit organization founded by Alexander McCobin in 2008. In 2011, SFL expanded to Europe, establishing the European Students for Liberty (ESFL), which is currently based in Austria. ESFL offers a host of programs, such as conferences, free books, virtual speakers bureau, webinar series, campus coordinators to connect pro-liberty students and student groups in Europe and empower the next generation of leaders in the global liberty movement. 

The funding support from Rising Tide Foundation (RTF) in 2015 was instrumental in the development of ‘European Students for Liberty’, a grassroots outreach initiative for liberty-minded students across Europe. A Local Coordinator Program was established and numerous regional conferences were conducted in various countries across Europe. ESFL was able to scale up their programs, recruit quality candidates and take on creative campaigns, reaching a wide population of students (6,590) to spread the ideas for a free society.

To sustain and build upon their previous success, ESFL will launch a new program, European Alumni for Liberty, which seeks to facilitate the transition of student leaders into the professional sector, and provide them with seed funding for successful projects, campaigns and companies. ESFL will connect these successful entrepreneurs with opportunities and help them find investors for their ideas to support them in advancing their careers.

ESFL hopes to additionally offer professional development fellowships with companies and different organizations to directly get the student leaders involved in the workforce.

As part of this initiative, ESFL will develop a solid website and data management system, and implement a host of marketing activities to get more people on board. They will also organize 20 Incubation Start-Up Fora, so that participants can receive mentoring from fellow leaders and compete for funding to see their projects to realization.