A Steward of Liberty: Dan Grossman

Atlas Network was saddened to learn the passing of Dan Grossman at the end of 2025. Read our statement of remembrance about his legacy here.

Dan Grossman Received the 2025 Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award

At Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner 2025 in New York City, Atlas Network honored Dan Grossman with the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award for his decades of dedicated service to the worldwide freedom movement.

A retired businessman turned philanthropist, Dan Grossman has spent the past several decades helping liberty-focused nonprofits become more efficient, accountable, and impactful. “I was very fortunate in business and was able to retire when I was 50,” he said. “I’ve spent the last 30-plus years trying to make sure the interests of donors in the nonprofit liberty movement are better served.”

Non-profit boards of directors serve a vital role by keeping organizations financially accountable, strategically sound, and legally compliant. Dan’s combined tenure as a board member of groups across the freedom movement totals more than a century of service.

Discovering the Ideas of Liberty

Dan’s introduction to the principles of free markets and individual liberty came during his college years when he discovered The Freeman, a former publication of the Foundation for Economic Education. The magazine introduced him to the ideas and theories behind classical liberalism, which he found he already agreed with.

“I was basically a libertarian at heart without even knowing the word,” he said. “As I was in business, I became aware of how important, from a commercial and economic point of view, free markets are—and that made me even more interested.”

“Dan’s a true believer,” said Wayne Olson, chairman of the board of The Foundation for Economic Education. “He really understands the importance of what we’re doing here in the freedom movement.”

From Entrepreneur to Advocate

Before joining the nonprofit world, Grossman built a successful career in the office supply industry, which included extensive work in Asia. “I recognized that the rest of the world was in many ways less free than even the United States was,” he said.

When he retired, Grossman began serving on nonprofit boards, starting with the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). That experience ignited his decades-long mission: helping liberty-focused nonprofits operate with the discipline and efficiency of successful businesses. “Many organizations I believed in weren’t being run as businesses,” he explained. “They had great intentions, and I agreed with their missions, but they weren’t focusing on making sure donors got the most value for their money.”

Unlike for-profits,” Dan said, “nonprofits don’t get price signals. If Walmart doesn’t sell you what you want, you stop buying. But an organization like Atlas Network could be doing the best job possible—and people wouldn’t know.”

Strengthening the Freedom Movement

Dan joined Atlas Network’s board of directors when it was still a small organization focused largely on Latin America. “When I joined, Atlas Network was essentially a grant-giving organization,” he said. “They were continually going to the same people, and the effectiveness of the grants wasn’t being evaluated.”

Under his tenure, Atlas Network transformed into a global hub of training, peer-to-peer collaboration, and innovation. “It evolved into the Coach, Compete, Celebrate approach, where grants represent about 30 to 40 percent of what is invested in the freedom movement,” he said. “The rest is providing services, a network, giving people the opportunity to meet each other, and getting ideas exchanged.”

“When I think of Dan, I think of him as an institution builder,” said Peter Goettler, president and CEO of the Cato Institute.

Today, the network includes over 500 organizations in more than 100 countries, compared to the few dozen when he began. Atlas Network, Dan said, has become “a true global network—a multiplier of impact rather than just a funder.”

A Global Perspective

Grossman’s travels across continents have given him a unique window into how societies flourish—or fail—depending on their commitment to liberty. “Traveling to former totalitarian countries has shown me how transformative liberty and markets can be,” he said. “You could see it in Eastern Europe, in places like Georgia and Armenia after the Soviet Union fell—the vibrancy, the economic growth, the opening up of society.”

He has also seen setbacks: “Sometimes you go to a country and ten years later, the amount of human liberty is dramatically reduced. It’s a reminder that our work’s never done.”

Still, he remains deeply optimistic. “Anybody who was around in the 1960s will realize that things today are much calmer and more harmonious,” he said. “The world is a far, far better place than it was then.”

The Modest Reformer

For all his impact, Grossman doesn’t boast about his own achievements. “I’ve always preferred to work in the background,” he said. “The benefit is from what has hopefully been accomplished. Fame is not worth the effort because there’s nothing there to it.”

Asked what principle he hopes others will carry forward, he answered without hesitation: “Humility and optimism. We are not able to control the world. We are hardly able to control our own lives, much less the lives of eight billion people. But if we bring humility and optimism to our work, the movement will continue to flourish.”

As he receives the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award, Grossman remains focused on the same mission that began when he first picked up a copy of The Freeman: helping liberty’s advocates do their work better and keeping faith in the power of free people to build a freer world.