For Immediate Release:
October 16, 2018

David Boze, Communications Director
206-946-1018

SEATTLE—Washington Policy Center (WPC) raised a record $1.1 million from its Bellevue Annual Dinner event, the think tank announced today.  WPC held two annual dinner events last Friday including the Western Washington Annual Dinner and the WPC Young Professionals Annual Dinner for those under 40.   Total attendance was over 1500, with 1213 at the main WPC Annual Dinner and a further 332 Young Professionals, including 88 college students. 

Newt Gingrich, the event’s keynote speaker, warned that “throwing money at problems” was not finding solutions and called for conservatives to engage in places where the status quo was showing outward signs of failure.  “In Baltimore, 13 percent of eighth graders pass their math exams,” the former Speaker of the House explained. “There is a moral corruption in the bureaucracy of our education system.”  In addition, Gingrich pointed to the failure of our infrastructure and called for “bold new thinking” about replacing decaying roads and bridges. 

Gingrich added praise for Washington Policy Center and cited it as “an example of what we need more of in this country…. Because the greatest challenge in American government today is not money but in having solutions that work.” 

Also speaking was Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel.  Strassel praised WPC and reminded attendees that while many in power or in the media focus on Washington D.C., it is state-level policy where “real change is made” and why the work of WPC is so important.

“This year was just phenomenal,” said Dann Mead Smith, WPC president. “People are looking for solutions. They rely on us for a clear perspective.”

Washington Policy Center’s Annual Dinner events have been a tradition for more than 20 years. WPC Annual Dinners in Eastern and Western Washington and the WPC Young Professionals dinner combine for an attendance of more than 2500 business and community leaders, policymakers, and active citizens and are among the largest of their kind in the nation.

The Eastern Washington WPC Annual Dinner is held in Spokane on October 24th. For more information see the events page at WashingtonPolicy.org.

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