Michael Joyce (1942-2006)

Former Bradley Foundation czar's investments in privatization and faith-based initiatives helped build the modern conservative movement

If there was a Hall of Fame for right wing philanthropists and their facilitators -- and who knows, the Heritage Foundation just might establish such an institution some day -- one of its first inductees would undoubtedly be Michael Joyce.

In 1986, Joyce was named in an Atlantic Monthly article as "one of the three people most responsible for the triumph of the conservative political movement." Waldemar Nielson, in his book on the foundation movement, Golden Donors, said Joyce was "pretty close to being the central figure [in conservative philanthropy]." He was once called "the godfather of modern philanthropy" by noted neo-conservative Irving Kristol.