Bradley Foundation


The Lynde and Harry 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 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 Foundation's giving is directed to national groups while 30% of the Foundation's giving is Wisconsin-based.

History

The 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 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 foundation, which saw its assets rise from $14 million to over $290 million. In 1986, the 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.

Funding areas

The foundation describes itself as supporting limited government.
In a 2018 interview, the Foundation's CEO Richard Graber described the Foundation's four major areas of funding as "constitutional order," education, civil society, and arts and culture. In the same interview, Richard Graber said that the 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, Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy and Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum. The 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 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 Foundation as among the largest contributors to the climate change denial movement from 2003 to 2010.

Bradley Prize

The Bradley Prize is a grant to individuals who are "innovative thinkers". According to the foundation the Bradley Prize is 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. Winners have included Leonard Leo, Jeb Bush, Roger Ailes, Paul Clement, Mitch Daniels, Yuval Levin, Kimberly Strassel, and Gary Sinise,