[4] In 1945, Paepcke visited Bauhaus artist and architect Herbert Bayer, AIA, who had designed and built a Bauhaus-inspired minimalist home outside the decaying former mining town of Aspen, in the Roaring Fork Valley.

He hoped that the institute could help business leaders recapture what he called "eternal verities": the values that guided them intellectually, ethically, and spiritually as they led their companies.

In 1979, through a donation by Corning Glass industrialist and philanthropist Arthur A. Houghton Jr., the institute acquired a 1,000-acre (4 km2) campus on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, known today as the Wye River Conference Centers.

[8] In 1983, former United States Senator Dick Clark founded the Aspen Institute's Congressional program, which sought to educate members of Congress on foreign affairs issues.

[12] Since 2013,[13] the Aspen Institute together with U.S. magazine The Atlantic and Bloomberg Philanthropies has participated in organizing the annual CityLab event, a summit dedicated to develop strategies for the challenges of urbanization in today's cities.

[18] Since 1974, the Aspen Institute has inspired 13 independently-governed and self-funding international partner organizations in 16 countries: Central Europe (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia,) Colombia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Romania, Spain, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

This funding originated primarily in Western democracies but also included "sizeable donations from undemocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"[22] In April 2020, the company received approximately $8 million in federally backed small business loans as part of the Paycheck Protection Program.

[24] The Henry Crown Fellowship, established in 1997, educates accomplished entrepreneurs from the private sector to become leaders in community and global development projects.

[29][30] Recipients to date include:[31] The Financial Times called the Faculty Pioneers and Dissertation Proposal Awards the "Oscars of the business school world".

These honor business school instructors with an outstanding track record of leadership and risk-taking in ensuring that the MBA curriculum incorporates social, environmental and ethical issues.