Another leading funder of the John Locke Foundation is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, one of the nation’s largest conservative grantmakers and a major funder of climate denial. According to Sourcewatch.org, between 2015 and 2017 the Bradley Foundation contributed $1.5 million to the John Locke Foundation and the John William Pope Civitas Institute, another conservative think tank in North Carolina founded and funded by Art Pope.
In 2017, Pope was elected chair of the Bradley Foundation. The following year, a Center for Media and Democracy investigation showed that the foundation has been involved in “a concerted effort … to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.”