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Bradley Foundation
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, commonly known as the Bradley Foundation, is an American charitable foundation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that has been one of the most influential funders of the conservative movement.[1][2][3] The foundation funds a variety of conservative groups along with cultural institutions and Milwaukee nonprofit organizations. It has been active in school choice and efforts to change election rules.[2][4] Approximately 70% of the foundation's giving is directed to national groups while 30% is Wisconsin-based, its CEO said in 2018.[2] The foundation had about $850 million in assets as of 2021.[4] It awards the Bradley Prize.[1] History
The foundation was established in 1942, shortly after the death of Lynde Bradley, to further the philosophy of the Bradley brothers. The Bradley brothers had helped found the Allen-Bradley Company, a major electrical controls manufacturer.[1] The foundation's credo is "The good society is a free society."[5] In 1965, after the death of Harry Lynde Bradley, Lynde's brother, the foundation expanded and began to concentrate on public policy.[6] The 1985 acquisition of the Allen-Bradley Company by Rockwell International Corporation resulted in a portion of the proceeds going to expand the foundation, swelling its assets from $14 million to over $290 million.[7][1] In 1986, the foundation gave away $23 million, more than it had in the previous four decades.[6] 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).[8] The Bradley Foundation acts like "a venture capital fund for conservative ideas", in the words of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2011.[1] In the August 2021 New Yorker magazine, Jane Mayer wrote that the Bradley Foundation "has become an extraordinary force in persuading mainstream Republicans to support radical challenges to election rules—a tactic once relegated to the far right" and "funds a network of groups that have been stoking fear about election fraud, in some cases for years. Public records show that, since 2012, the foundation has spent some eighteen million dollars supporting eleven conservative groups involved in election issues."[4] On the foundation's board of directors is attorney Cleta Mitchell, who joined Donald Trump on his phone call on 2 January 2021 when Trump pressured Georgia election officials to find 11,780 votes to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election results.[4] Funding areasThe foundation describes itself as supporting limited government.[9] The New York Times described the Bradley Foundation as "a leading source of ideas and financing for American conservatives."[10] A 2013 report from the Center for Public Integrity found that the Bradley Foundation was a contributor to Donors Trust, a right-wing think tank which has been described as the "dark money ATM" for conservative billionaires, enabling them to make sizable donations to conservative causes without attracting public scrutiny.[11][12] In a 2018 interview, the foundation's CEO, Richard Graber, described its four major areas of funding as "constitutional order", education (in particular school choice), civil society, and arts and culture.[2] In that interview, Graber said that the foundation would deemphasize some areas in which it had previously made grants, including national security and foreign policy.[2] Activities in these areas had funded millions of dollars for three anti-Muslim groups: the David Horowitz Freedom Center (which received $4.2 million), Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy (which received $815,000) and Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum (which received $305,000). These grants were between 2008 and 2011.[13] The foundation's funding was criticized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which described the grant recipients as an "Islamophobic network."[13] The Bradley Foundation is a major funder of state-level initiatives opposing unions, particularly in Wisconsin.[14][1] Organizations awarded grants by the foundation have included the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),[14] FreedomWorks,[15] Americans for Prosperity,[15] The Heritage Foundation,[16] the Hoover Institution,[16] the Black Alliance for Educational Options[16] and the SEED Foundation.[16] The associated Bradley Impact Fund in 2020 gave $6.5 million, its largest donation that year, to Project Veritas.[17] Bradley PrizeThe Bradley Prize is a grant to "formally recognize individuals of extraordinary talent and dedication who have made contributions of excellence in areas consistent with The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation's mission." As many as four prizes of $250,000 each are awarded annually, often to right-wing opinion leaders.[1] Winners[18] have included Fouad Ajami (2006), John Bolton (2007), Martin Feldstein (2007), Victor Davis Hanson (2008), Leonard Leo (2009), William Kristol (2009), Paul A. Gigot (2010), Jeb Bush (2011),[19] Edwin Meese III (2012), Roger Ailes (2013),[20] Paul Clement (2013), Mitch Daniels (2013), Yuval Levin (2013),[21] Kimberly Strassel (2014),[22] Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2015), James Ceaser (2015), Gary Sinise (2016),[23] Peter Berkowitz (2017), Charles R. Kesler (2018),[18] Roger Kimball (2019), Amity Shlaes (2021),[24] Glenn Loury (2022),[25] John H. Cochrane (2023), and Jay Bhattacharya (2024).[18] The Bradley Prizes for 2020 were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.[26] See also
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