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Bradley Foundation

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Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Company typePrivate charitable foundation
Founded1985
HeadquartersMilwaukee, Wisconsin
Key people
Thomas L. Rhodes
Chairman
David V. Uihlein, Jr.
Vice Chairman
Michael W. Grebe
President and CEO
Revenue54,916,115 United States dollar (2019) Edit this on Wikidata
Websitebradleyfdn.org

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a conservative foundation with about half a billion US dollars in assets. According to the Bradley Foundation 1998 Annual Report, it gives away more than $30 million per year. The Foundation has financed efforts to support federal institutes, publications and school choice and educational projects.

History

When Rockwell International Corporation bought Allen-Bradley in 1985, a significant portion of the proceeds went into the creation of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. The organization was founded in an attempt to preserve and extend the principles and philosophy used by the Bradley brothers.

During their life they were committed to preserving and defending the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise. According to them, "the good society is a free society. The Bradley Foundation is likewise devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles and values that sustain and nurture it."

The foundation supports limited government, conceived of as a dynamic marketplace where economic, intellectual, and cultural activity can flourish. It states that it defends American ideas and institutions. Next to that it recognizes that responsible self government depends on informing citizens and creating a well informed public opinion. The foundation tries to accomplish that by financing scholarly studies and academic achievements. [2]

The Bradley Foundation's former president, Michael S. Joyce, was instrumental in creating the Philanthropy Roundtable. The goal of the Roundtable's founders was to provide a forum where donors could discuss the principles and practices that inform the best of America's charitable tradition. Currently, there are more than 600 Roundtable Associates.

In the early 1990s the foundation helped support The American Spectator, which at the time was researching damaging material on President Bill Clinton. In the March 1992 issue of the magazine, David Brock called Anita Hill "a bit nutty and a bit slutty", and in January, 1994, it published Brock's article regarding Troopergate and Clinton's alleged extramarital affairs. David Brock later recanted both articles.

The Bradley Foundation has provided funding for the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). PNAC brought together prominent members of the (George W) Bush Administration (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz) in the late 1990s to articulate their neoconservative foreign policy, including sending a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to invade Iraq.

Governance

Current members of the board of directors of the Bradley Foundation are: William Armstrong, Reed Coleman, Terry Considine, Pierre du Pont, Michael Grebe, Thomas Smallwood, Bob Smith, and David Uihlein.

Bradley Prize

The Bradley Prizes is a major grant to individuals who are "innovative thinkers". According to the foundation the Bradly Prize is to "recognize individuals of extraordinary talent and dedication who have made contributions of excellence". As many as four Prizes of $250,000 each are awarded annually. It has been described as a conservative Genius grant, like that given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Past and present grantees

List of grants and cumulative amounts given from 1985-2002 [3].

National organizations

These are a few of the many donations that have been granted by the Foundation.

Over $10 million

Over $5 million

Over $2 million

Over $1 million

Over $500,000

Over $100,000

$100,000

Less than $100,000

Unknown

Local charities

Over $5 million

Over $1 million

Over $500,000

Over $100,000

Unknown amount

Public officials

Jurists

Writers

Criticism

People for the American Way alleged that the Bradley Foundations under-reported its giving to right-wing organizations. This occurred in 1997. The Bradley Foundation CFO at the time acknowledged an error, attributed it to a software problem and resubmittted its 1997 IRS Form 990. [16]

Between 1985 and 1991, it was one of five foundations to fund the George C. Marshall Institute, a known Global Warming skeptic.

Phil Wilayto, former coordinator of A Job is a Right Campaign in Milwaukee and a contributor to MediaTransparency, a left-wing Web site that tracks the funding of right-wing politics, writes:

The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation, however, is to return the U.S. -- and the world -- to the days before governments began to regulate Big Business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off.

Wilayto also published a 140-page report on the Bradley Foundation, The Feeding Trough, on behalf of the "A Job is a Right Campaign" in Milwaukee. The report claims the Bradley Foundation commissioned the studies that supported the welfare reform legislation in Wisconsin, which he contends harmed the state's poor residents. He also claimed the Bradley Foundation exploits Milwaukee's black community.

References

  1. ^ "Buying a Movement." People For the American Way. pfaw.org. [1]

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bradley_Foundation&oldid=306527066"