The Acton Institute won first place in the Free Market Solutions to Poverty category in the 2007 Templeton Freedom petition. The award, managed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recognized Acton for its use of the “power of the popular media to mon beliefs about how to alleviate poverty.”

Using the tagline, “Don’t Just Care, Think!,” the Acton project used documentaries, short films, public service announcements, print ads, and other educational materials to make the case that good intentions alone will not help the world’s poor.

This is the third award for Acton. The Institute also won Templeton Freedom Awards in 2005 in the Excellence in Promoting Liberty category -– for its Toward a Free and Virtuous Society conferences — and in 2004 in the Ethics and Values category for “its extensive body of work on the moral defense of the free market.”

The multi-faceted awards program, which attracted this year more than 200 entries from 53 countries, recognizes innovative civil society programs sponsored by independent research institutes around the world. The program is named in honor of famed investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. “Economic and political freedom are advancing globally, and men and women focused on ideas, rather than violence, are leading the way,” said Atlas President Alejandro Chafuen. “The winners of this year’s Templeton Awards demonstrate the breadth of this movement.”

Read more on the award here.