The Brico Fund is a left-of-center grantmaking organization founded in 1990 in Milwaukee by heiress Lynde B. Uihlein. The fund provides grants to a range of left-of-center causes, beginning with a focus on women’s issues and moving to providing funding for environmentalist projects in recent years.

The organization’s 501(c)(3) private foundation arm is known as the Astor Street Foundation. ^[1]

History

The Brico Fund (Astor Street Foundation) was founded in 1990. The Fund’s first mission was to provide grants to left-of-center feminist organizations. Over the years, the Fund has expanded its efforts, providing grants to projects on environmentalism and progressivism more broadly.

The Brico Fund is involved in many of the large, secretive funding networks of the political left. ^[2] The Fund is reportedly a partner with the Democracy Alliance, a major convening of liberal advocacy and political donors. ^[3] The Brico Fund has also been involved with the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP), a network of organizations designed to fund left-of-center election policy efforts under a banner of nonpartisan action, established by NEO Philanthropy. ^[4]

Grantmaking Activity

Environmentalism

In 2011, Lynde B. Uihlein and the Brico Fund gifted $2.6 million to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to build the Center for Water Policy and appoint a Chair in Water Policy ^[5] The Brico Fund also sponsored the creation of the Water Policy Fellowship in Great Lakes Journalism at the university. ^[6]

Much of the Brico Fund’s focus has been on water policy, only recently expanding to include other aspects of environmentalism. The Fund’s offered its largest grant in 2017 ($50,000) to the Island Institute in Maine, an environmentalist organization associated with Maine Conservation Voters. ^[7][8] The Fund made further general contributions to the Urban Ecology Center and the Wisconsin League of Conservation. ^[9] In 2018, the Brico Fund contributed $250,000 to develop the Milwaukee waterfront. ^[10] Later that year, the Fund participated in the Milwaukee Green Infrastructure Plan to create green spaces throughout the city. ^[11]

Left-of-Center Activism

For most of its history, the Brico Fund was a left-of-center feminist organization focusing on women’s rights and reproductive health. The organization has made substantial grants to the Ms. Foundation for Women, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin. ^[12]

The Brico Fund has also supported the general development of left-wing ideologies. In 2003, the Brico Fund provided grants to Political Research Associates, an organization that attempts to discredit mainstream center-right views by tarring them as extremist and bigoted. ^[13][14] In 2017, the Fund contributed to the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-of-center think tank and advocacy organization. ^[15]

Funding

Lynde B. Uihlein is the Founder and Vice President of the Brico Fund. Uihlein is one of the heirs to the Allen Bradley and Schlitz Brewing family fortunes. ^[16] She is also a prominent donor to the Democratic Party. Uihlein is the first ever Wisconsin donor to contribute $1 million to 527 political groups in a single election cycle, making up nearly one-third of Wisconsin’s total contributions in 2008. ^[17] Uihlein repeated this again in 2014, when she gave $1 million to the Democratic Party. ^[18]

Uilhein has been involved in the pro-abortion movement for years, contributing to EMILY’s List and NARAL Pro-Choice America. ^[19] Uihlein was reportedly “instrumental” to opening a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee in 2017 ^[20]

Sarah Zimmerman, Uihlein’s daughter, serves as the current president of the Brico Fund. Zimmerman is a Yale Law School graduate who sits on the development committee for WYMS radio station, an organization to which the Foundation granted $20,000 in 2017. ^[21][22]