[3][4][5][6] Through research and programs, the Mackinac Center supports lower taxes, reduced regulatory authority for state agencies, right-to-work laws, school choice, and property rights.

[22][18] Olson said the founders wanted an organization that would focus on research, writing, speaking, issuing press releases and looking at public policy from a free market point of view.

It formally opened offices in Midland in 1988 with its first president, Lawrence W. Reed, an economist, writer, and speaker who had chaired the economics department at Northwood University.

In 1999, the Mackinac Center moved from rented offices to its current headquarters after having raised $2.4 million to renovate a former Woolworth's department store on Midland's Main Street.

[25][26] The Mackinac Center published a 20-point plan for state fiscal reform, with Governor John Engler fully or partially implementing 16 of those recommendations during his first term in office.

[27][28] When asked by Detroit's Metro Times in 1996, the Center's President Lawrence Reed said: "Our funding sources are primarily foundations ... with the rest coming from corporations and individuals," but that "... revealing our contributors would be a tremendous diversion..."[18] In 2001, Mackinac Center was described as "the leading advocate for a universal education tax credit" by a Wall Street Journal editorial.

[30] In November 2006 The New York Times published a two-part series about state-based "conservative" think tanks that described how the Mackinac Center trained think-tank executives from 42 countries and nearly every US state.

[33] The Mackinac Center in 2018 led several conservative groups urging teachers to leave unions with a national campaign called "My Pay, My Say".

[38] The Mackinac Center's director of energy and environmental policy was a contributor to the Project 2025 plan anticipating Donald Trump's second term as president of the United States.

After his death in a plane crash in 2003, his colleague Joseph Lehman named the idea in a presentation about the power of consistent and persistent advocacy.

[16] The Mackinac Center defines the Overton Window as:...a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics.

However, the Court concluded that the quotation in the fundraising letter "falls squarely within the protection of the First Amendment for discourse on matters of public interest.

The lawsuit was filed under the federal False Claims Act, maintaining that these labor unions improperly sought and received $12.5 million in COVID-19 relief money through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

[53] The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit on the grounds that the actions of the MEA and MESSA deprived other businesses of relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[61] Between 2008 and 2013, the Mackinac Center received $2.4 million from DonorsTrust, a donor-advised fund used by conservative philanthropists, according to a liberal group called the Bridge Project.

This platform is designed by Mackinac Center with the aim to enable individuals to stay informed about various legislations and to ensure that their elected officials are held responsible for their actions.