A close examination of the Free Market Institute’s funding shows how often such funding comes with strings attached,” The Texas Observer wrote in 2016. “In a 2013 grant application for $1.7 million from the John Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that advocates reconciling religion and science, Powell suggested that the institute staff could monitor how students changed their views as a result of their teachings. The funding, he wrote, would also further the foundation’s mission — to build a ‘freer and more prosperous society’ — and change the way “supporters of private enterprise and free markets agitate for more freedom.'