William
H. Brady, Jr. incorporated the W.H. Brady Foundation in 1954, the same
year he became a founding member of the National Review. He believed
that, "It is not government, it is not dictators or presidents or
generals or popes who rule the world. It's ideas." From 1954 to 1988,
the Foundation was based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and contributed to many
civic, educational, and public policy organizations.
After
her father's death in 1988, Elizabeth Brady Lurie assumed leadership of
the W.H. Brady Foundation. In 1996, the Foundation's headquarters were
moved to Asheville, North Carolina with a major emphasis on supporting
public policy non-profit organizations.
In
2001, Dr. Elizabeth Pungello, Elizabeth Lurie's daughter and William H. Brady's granddaughter, became president of the W. H. Brady Foundation. A
few years later the Foundation engaged in a large gifting program
followed by a major reorganization. Renamed the Brady Education
Foundation, it moved its offices to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For the
next five years, the board maintained a
gifting moratorium as it developed a new mission and operating
guidelines.
The
Brady Education Foundation resumed a regular granting cycle in 2009. In
keeping with Dr. Pungello's own academic training and keen interest in education, the Foundation's board currently focuses its
attention on ways to close the achievement gap of
children at risk for poor school outcomes due to environmental factors
associated with living in poverty. The Foundation generally funds two
types of projects: evaluations of existing model programs, and
innovative research on model development. It seeks to fund high quality
research that encourages early and regular collaboration between
researchers and practitioners.
Today's
Brady Education Foundation strives to be the place where "research and
practice meet" because, as Mr. Brady used to say, "ideas have
consequences."
