Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation [Bradley Foundation]

SOURCE:  Wikipedia, 2020-06-09

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The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation  ["Bradley Foundation"], based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is an American charitable foundation with more than $800 million U.S. dollars in assets. It promotes American exceptionalism, the theory that America is qualitatively different from other nations.

The Bradley Foundation provides between $35 million and $45 million annually to a variety of causes, including cultural institutions, community-based nonprofit organisations in Milwaukee, and conservative groups. It has been particularly active in supporting education reform efforts, including school choice. Approximately 70% of the Bradley Foundation's giving is directed to national groups while 30% of the Bradley Foundation's giving is Wisconsin-based.

History

The Bradley Foundation was established in 1942, shortly after the death of Lynde Bradley. The organization was founded in an attempt to preserve and extend the principles and philosophy of the Bradley brothers. According to the organization, "the good society is a free society."

Twenty years after the death of his brother Harry Lynde Bradley, in 1965, the Bradley Foundation expanded in size and began to concentrate on public policy. The 1985 acquisition of Allen-Bradley by Rockwell International Corporation resulted in a portion of the proceeds going into the expansion of the Bradley foundation, which saw its assets rise from $14 million to over $290 million. In 1986, the Bradley Foundation gave away $23 million, more than it had in the previous four decades.

The Bradley Foundation's former President, Michael S. Joyce, helped to create the Philanthropy Roundtable, a group of American philanthropists that, as of 2018, has 660 members (consisting of both individuals and organizations).

• The Executive Director of the John M. Olin Foundation in its early years was conservative activist Michael S. Joyce, who left to head the similar Bradley Foundation.

• In 1979, Michael S. Joyce was appointed Executive Vice President of the John M. Olin Foundation, where he served until 1985. During his tenure, Joyce helped launch the Federalist Society, a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers ...

Funding areas

The Bradley foundation describes itself as supporting limited government.

In a 2018 interview, the Bradley Foundation's CEO Richard Graber described the Bradley Foundation's four major areas of funding as

• "constitutional order,"
  
• education (in particular school choice),
  
• civil society, and arts and
  
• culture.

In the same interview, Richard Graber said that the Bradley Foundation would deemphasize some topic areas on which it had previously made grants, including national security and foreign policy.

Between 2008 and 2011, the Bradley Foundation donated millions of dollars to three anti-Muslim groups>:

• the David Horowitz Freedom Center: $4.2 million,
• Frank J. Gaffney Jr.'s   Center for Security Policy: $815,000, and
• Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum: $305,000.

The Bradley Foundation's funding was criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which described the grant recipients as an "Islamophobic network."

Organizations awarded grants by the Bradley Foundation have included:

• FreedomWorks,
• Americans for Prosperity,
• The Heritage Foundation,
• the Hoover Institution,
• the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and
• the SEED Foundation.

A 2013 Smithsonian Magazine article listed the Bradley Foundation as among the largest contributors to the climate change denial movement from 2003 to 2010.

Financial Snapshot