Finding individuals willing to subscribe to and champion the cause was a necessary first step to diffusing the think tank model. Initially, the identification of those potential champions was mostly ad hoc—happening through the mobilization of direct and indirect personal networks. In the US, Fisher could rely on his own personal connections to identify the new generation of think tank leaders. In Latin America, however, his personal contacts were limited. Hence he used indirect mechanisms. First he leveraged his contacts within the MPS, of which he had been a member since 1954. When Hayek or Friedman traveled to South America and met interesting prospects, they connected them with Fisher. This was how, for example, Fisher met Hernando de Soto. Fisher spurred de Soto, a Peruvian economist trained in Switzerland, to create his home country's first think tank—the Instituto Libertad y Democracia (ILD) in 1981.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 561