The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is an American conservative foundation with with $629 million assets under management. The Foundation has financed efforts to support federal institutes, publications and school choice and educational projects.
The Foundation's Board, on occasion, undertakes to define and redefine its current program interests. At present, the Foundation aims to encourage projects that focus on cultivating a renewed, healthier, and more vigorous sense of citizenship among the American people, and among peoples of other nations, as well.
Focus Areas
Strengthening American democratic capitalism
The Bradley Foundation seeks to strengthen the American democratic-capitalist system under which the Bradley brothers prospered. It believes that democratic capitalism, properly understood, accords men and women the dignity they deserve as human beings. It further believes that growing and prosperous economy improves the prospects for a good life for all of those people. Bradley thus supports organizations that research and educate the public and policymakers about the conditions necessary for such growth and prosperity, and it funds education-reform groups to help citizens participate and hopefully succeed on their own, private initiative in an economy with such conditions.
Supporting limited, competent government
The Bradley Foundation believes that ordered liberty with a limited, competent government leaves civil society and citizens, like the Bradley brothers, with more freedom to both flourish and solve problems effectively on their own. Therefore, it supports groups that research and educate the public and policymakers about both the benefits of limited government and, in some cases, the best ways to have a competent, small government.
Defending, at home and abroad, American ideas and institutions
The Bradley Foundation defends and advances the promise and practice of freedom, from which the Bradley brothers benefitted, in the U.S. and around the world. It thus backs entities that defend against legal, cultural, and other encroachments on that freedom at home and that argue for an aggressive stance against enemies attacking that freedom our national interests abroad and in foreign-policy and national-security debates at home.
Supporting a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual, and cultural activity
The Bradley Foundation believes, as did the Bradley brothers, in the dynamism of markets. Economically, intellectually, and culturally, Bradley regards the competitive nature of market forces as helpful in achieving the best possible outcomes for all. It is for fairness in those markets, of course, and the widest possible participation in them. Therefore, it supports those that educate policymakers and the public about policies and practices that allow for non-governmental, market-based solutions, and those that help provide the widest possible opportunity to fairly compete -- again, economically, culturally, and intellectually.
Recognizing that responsible self-government depends on enlightened citizens
Relatedly, the Bradley Foundation also funds groups furthering the interests of or directly assisting community-based, voluntary, often grassroots and faith-based groups that people -- exercising a vigorous, active citizenship -- create and which preserve their deeply held values and solve their once seemingly intractable problems.
