In 1937, Draper established the Pioneer Fund, a foundation intended to give scholarships to descendants of White American colonial-era families, and to support research into "race betterment" through eugenics. The scholarships were never given, but the first project of the fund was to distribute two documentary films from Nazi Germany depicting their claimed success with eugenics. The Pioneer Fund was headed by the sociologist and eugenicist, Harry H. Laughlin, an advocate for restrictive immigration laws and national programs of compulsory sterilization of the mentally ill and intellectually disabled.