Annual BARON AWARD Presentation
Spring Meeting, The Philadelphia Society, Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay – April 18, 2026
Pictured: T. Kenneth Cribb, Ingrid Gregg, Lenore Ealy, Victoria Hughes, Joseph Morris, Roger Ream
It is my pleasure to present the 2026 Baron Award. The Baron Award is presented at each annual meeting in remembrance of the great John Von Kannon – the Baron as we affectionately called him.
Neal and Jane Freeman established this award in 2016 in remembrance of John Von Kannon. Please join me in thanking Neal and Jane for their initiative and generosity.
This is a significant award for many reasons.
It is important to remember those who’ve gone before us. That question has special relevance in this year of America’s semi-quincentennial.
Remembrance is a way to honor those who built the foundation we stand upon today. We learn the lessons from the past so that we don’t repeat mistakes nor do we waste time re-learning what we can gain from those who came before us. Remembrance enables us to model behavior that stirs us to greater success.
This award is intended to encourage those attributes in the Baron that make for the camaraderie and fellowship necessary for the Philadelphia Society to flourish and achieve its purposes. To the extent we encourage the conduct exemplified by John Von Kannon through the presentation of the Baron Award each year, we strengthen our Society.
John’s career success was as a fundraiser extraordinaire. Many of us, myself included, learned at his feet. The Baron understood fundraising as “friend-raising” and was the master at building genuine relationships with donors. John liked to say, “I don’t raise money. I receive it.” This best encapsulates John’s approach to fundraising. John worked for many years at The Heritage Foundation, where he viewed himself as a recipient of donors’ generosity that emerged from a relationship centered on mutual respect, shared principles, and authentic and personal interactions.
The Baron was active in our Society, beloved by those who were blessed to know him, and taken from us while in his prime.
The leadership of the Society pulled a group of us together earlier this year to review the nominations that we received from members for the 2026 Baron Award. We had a dozen or more outstanding nominations – that made the task a challenge. We began by reviewing the criteria established for the award. It reads:
The Baron Award shall be given annually to that member of The Philadelphia Society who most faithfully exemplifies, in word and deed, the good fellowship, personal loyalty, intellectual integrity, and moral courage of our beloved friend and colleague, John Von Kannon.
That is one high standard, but in the end, one nominee stood above the others.
This nominee excels at fellowship, exemplifies intellectual integrity and has demonstrated moral courage throughout a distinguished career in the conservative movement.
It is a career that reflects a fusionist mindset, and work in organizations across the broad spectrum of the freedom movement promoting liberty and virtue as a fundraiser, fundraising consultant and movement leader.
But our recipient’s work in the nonprofit sector extends well beyond fundraising, including serving as a nonprofit leader, a board member, an educator and an advisor.
What stood out to the selection committee is the role of this individual as a mentor to many younger professionals in the conservative movement. That perhaps best evokes the memory of John Von Kannon. Like the Baron before her, our 2026 Baron Award winner readily shares her knowledge, skills and passion for the cause. In doing so, she has helped build the professionals who will lead our movement into the future.
The recipient of the 2026 Baron Award has worked for the Reason Foundation, the Ashbrook Center, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Heritage Foundation. At the latter, she worked directly with the Baron from 1985 to 1989 as director of development, where she helped increase revenue by 30% by creating a more personalized approach to major gifts. Working side by side with John, she adopted his donor-centric attitude towards fundraising and nonprofit management.
In guess you haven’t guessed it already, the recipient of our 2026 Baron Award, appropriately I declare in this semi-quincentennial year, is the founder of the Bill of Rights Institute, the former Co-Chair of the America 250 Civics Task Force, and a past president of the Philadelphia Society: Victoria Hughes.
Please welcome to the stage our friend and fellow Society colleague, Victoria Hughes.
Remarks by Roger Ream on April 18, 2026.