National free-market public-policy think tank | IG & FB: heartlandinstitute | YouTube: HeartlandTube | Search Heartland Daily Podcast: Apple, GooglePlay & more. A national free market think tank founded in 1984 and based in Arlington Heights, IL. More liberty & smaller government = more individual happiness and a better society. Free choice? Yes. Force? No. The great Milton Friedman was a big fan of Heartland. The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and devoted to research and education. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies.