The 64 independent think tanks that State Policy Network serves across the country prove daily that the most effective solutions to our country’s challenges come from local leaders, not politicians in Washington, DC. Whether it’s improving educational options, fixing state budgets, or creating job opportunities, state think tanks are fighting to protect citizens and communities.
That is why The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation partnered with SPN last year to implement the Bradley Freedom Grants program. The program builds on the Foundation’s long-time support for state-based policy organizations in Wisconsin and other states. With SPN’s help in 2019, the Foundation extended its investment in permanent freedom infrastructure in the states with grants totaling more than $900,000. The Foundation’s Board of Directors has approved up to $1.25 million for the program in 2020.
Lynde and Harry Bradley, entrepreneurs who created a remarkably successful company in Milwaukee, WI, believed in the richness of community and culture afforded by a free society. For decades, The Bradley Foundation has supported thousands of organizations that promote and defend the ideas and institutions of freedom and free enterprise.
Administratively, the Bradley Freedom Grants program borrows from SPN’s successful Searle Freedom Trust RFP program, which has invested over $5 million in 46 organizations over the past 12 years. Searle’s support for the state think tank network has expanded far beyond the RFP program and improved the lives of Americans in all 50 states.
Like the Searle program, SPN administers the Bradley Freedom Grants RFP process, while The Bradley Foundation’s Board of Directors makes all final grant decisions.
We are thrilled to partner with the Foundation in this new initiative.
The 2021 Bradley Freedom Grants RFP will be issued in the spring.
Congratulations to 2020’s think tank recipients:
- Alaska Policy Forum
- Beacon Center of Tennessee
- California Policy Center
- Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy
- Empower Mississippi
- Garden State Initiative
- Georgia Public Policy Foundation
- John Locke Foundation
- Kansas Policy Institute
- Libertas Institute
- Maine Policy Institute
- Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
- Pelican Institute for Public Policy
- Platte Institute
- Tax Education Foundation of Iowa
- Washington Policy Center