History

We invest in great ideas and the people who power them. This has been the case since we were founded in 1953 by Archie and Edyth Bush, who set up the foundation with few restrictions, ensuring that board and staff members through the years would have the flexibility needed to meet the challenges of the day.

A Granite Falls, Minnesota native, Archie began his career as a bookkeeper with a small company based in Duluth, Minnesota. He rose up through the ranks over the years, helping to shape it into the innovative multinational firm known today as 3M. With no children of their own to inherit their estate, Archie and Edyth established the Bush Foundation with an original investment of 3M stock.

Wealth should be used for the benefit of all humanity.

Archibald g. bush

Thanks to the curiosity of Carl T. Narvestad, and later to the persistence of Carol L. Heen, Archie’s life story was brought to life in the book, “Archie Bush: from Prairie to Philanthropy.” The book was published in 2023 by Nodin Press in Minneapolis. Copyright: Carol Heen. We were able to contribute a chapter specifically about Bush and have shared it below with the author and publisher’s permissions.

If you want to know how the book came to be, check out this great Pioneer PBS video!

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Excerpted from Archie Bush: from Prairie to Philanthropy

Chapter 10: The Bush Foundation

The work of the Bush Foundation is a living legacy of Archie Bush. The Foundation is actively addressing the challenges of today in ways that are rooted in the life and the philanthropy of its founder. In total, the Foundation has given more than $1.5 billion to individuals and communities — an extraordinary extension of Archie’s lifelong generosity.

Early history

The Bush Foundation was incorporated on February 24, 1953, “to encourage and promote charitable, scientific, literary and educational efforts.” Archie was elected President of the Foundation at the first meeting and was actively engaged in Foundation business.

In the early days, much of the funding went to civic and human service organizations in St. Paul and to direct gifts to individuals experiencing hardship or seeking educational opportunity. As the years went on, the Foundation got more specific about priorities. In the two annual reports published while Archie was living (1963 and 1964), the Foundation described itself as “most active in the areas of college and schools; student aid; leadership development; prevention of and social problems related to alcoholism; and general welfare.”

The Foundation also started taking on bigger and more ambitious projects over time. One of the most notable was Granville House (which carries the middle name of Archie and his father), a residential program for women with alcoholism located in St. Paul founded in 1963. The Foundation purchased the property, funded its startup costs, and collaborated closely with public and private partners to establish the residence and its programming.

One of the most significant programs established under Archie’s leadership was the Bush Fellows program – still a flagship program for the Foundation. It was launched in 1964 for Minnesota men between the ages of 25 and 40. It was a two-year self-designed program, supporting one year of academic study and one year serving as an assistant to an outstanding leader in business, government, education or a union. People who knew Archie described it as the type of program he wished had been available to him as a young man. As with all the Foundation’s programs, the Fellowship has evolved and changed over time – for example, it was expanded to include women in 1972.

When Archie died in 1966, he left the bulk of his estate to the Bush Foundation with Edyth’s written consent. Within months of Archie’s death, a 10-year struggle began over control of the Foundation, finally resolving in 1976.^[1] During this difficult decade of board infighting, the Foundation added professional staff and began grantmaking on a larger scale through more formalized processes.

Grantmaking

While Archie was alive, Foundation giving was primarily focused on St. Paul with occasional gifts to Chicago (like the gift to establish the A.G. Bush Library of Management, Organization and Industrial Relations at the University of Chicago in 1959) and other places where the Bush family had ties. After Archie died and the Foundation’s size was dramatically increased by the assets from his estate, the board expanded its geographic focus. Through the years, this has included some significant national grantmaking (like a 30-year program with Hewlett Foundation that invested $52 million in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, starting in 1976). Today the focus of grantmaking is Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and the 23 Native nations that share that geography.

The Foundation’s tagline, and its strategy, is to “invest in great ideas and the people who power them.” This reflects its roots in 3M innovation and in Archie’s people-focused approach to philanthropy.

Investing in ideas. Through the years, the Foundation has helped develop, test and spread great ideas around the region and across the country. For example, the Foundation:

—funded the creation of the first domestic violence shelter in the U.S. in 1974, as well as funding an innovative community domestic abuse response approach, known as the “Duluth model,” that has spread nationally.

—was an early funder in early childhood development, which included creating Bush Centers for child development and social policy at University of Michigan, University of North Carolina, UCLA and Yale. Their work helped establish the field in the late 1970s and 1980s.

—has promoted the idea of Nation building, supporting tribes to build governance capacity and exercise sovereignty to solve their people’s challenges. This work grew from grants like those in the 1990s to build tribal law libraries and tribal court capacity, and developed into a full strategic initiative including the creation of the Native Nation Rebuilders program and the Native Governance Center.

The work of developing, testing and spreading ideas continues today. Recent grants include investing in the first tribally owned power authority, funding new approaches to agricultural finance, and supporting the first accredited law school program for incarcerated people. And the ongoing impact of past grantmaking is visible all across the region including in the major gifts given through the years to build up colleges and arts organizations.

Investing in people. The Foundation continues to invest directly in people.^[2] The Bush Fellowship program has changed through the years, including dedicated programs in the past for the arts and medicine. Altogether, the Foundation has selected nearly 2,500 Bush Fellows, investing roughly $100 million in their growth. Bush Fellows through the years have included people like:

• August Wilson, who used his fellowship to write the play “Fences,” which went on to win Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
• Alyce Spotted Bear, a chairwoman of the MHA Nation who became a leading national voice on issues of Native education and youth.
• Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist who has been a leading national and global advisor throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Sean Sherman, aka the “Sioux Chef,” a James Beard-winning chef who is a leader in the Indigenous food movement in the region and around the world.
• Andrea Jenkins, a poet who went on to become president of the Minneapolis City Council and the first African American trans woman to win elected office in the U.S.
• Kevin Killer, a former South Dakota state-elected official who is now serving as president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

The Foundation’s commitment to leadership extends beyond the Bush Fellowship program. The Foundation funds other programs that invest in individuals as well as leadership networks that inspire, equip and connect people to lead more effectively. For example, the Foundation funded the startup of the Josie R. Johnson Leadership Academy, operated by the African American Leadership Forum, and provided the first grant funding for the Coalition of Asian American Leaders.

Making the region better for everyone.

The Foundation’s purpose statement is “to inspire and support creative problem solving – within and across sectors – to make the region better for everyone.” This reflects a focus on the capacity of the people in the region to address any and all challenges that come their way. And it reflects the Foundation’s deep commitment to equity, with particular focus on rural communities and racial justice.

This commitment has roots in Archie’s life and leadership. At the very first Foundation board meeting in 1953, Archie and his fellow board members approved a resolution to be inclusive of all people, regardless of race or national origin. This commitment was evident across the Foundation’s work. For example, the first-ever class of Bush Fellows in 1965 was racially diverse and included the leader of the state’s task force on racial equality.

In 2020, the Foundation issued $100 million in social impact bonds to create two community trust funds to support Black and Indigenous individuals to go to school, buy a house, start a business or other wealth-building activities. This was a reparative act to address racial wealth gaps that have built up over many decades and reflect the accumulated impact of race-based discrimination throughout our country’s history. It is also a strategy – supporting individual initiative and development – that is a very Archie way of doing philanthropy.

When he established the Foundation, Archie gave its future staff and directors enormous flexibility. This allows the Foundation to be creative and adaptable while still honoring Archie’s donor intent. As is written into the Foundation’s operating values, staff and board “never lose sight of the reason we exist: to do the most possible good with the resources left to the community by Archibald G. Bush.” 

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[1] Some board members wanted to move the Foundation and its assets to Florida, where Edyth lived. Toward that end, Edyth announced her intention to renounce the will. The Minnesota Governor’s office got involved in negotiating a financial compromise approved in August of 1966 by the Ramsey County Probate Court for Edyth to release her claims on the estate.

That agreement did not end the legal challenges. There were numerous lawsuits and countersuits brought by board directors. The Minnesota Attorney General was directly engaged with the Foundation as these lawsuits played out over the decade in both Minnesota and Florida courts. The legal challenges continued after Edyth suffered a debilitating stroke in 1968 and was ruled incompetent, and after her death in 1972. It was not until 1976 that the Ramsey County Probate Court released the second half of Archie’s estate that they had been holding until the legal disputes were settled. In 1978, the board amended the governing documents to remove any family member designation and the Foundation has had independent board governance since that time.

The Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation was established in 1966 and is based in Winter Park, Florida. In recent years, the two Foundations have collaborated on grantmaking to honor Archie and Edyth.

[2] Funding individuals is unusual in private foundations and is largely prohibited in the 1969 Tax Reform Act. The Bush Foundation received special permission from the IRS to continue its Bush Fellows program and continues to operate today within the bounds of that permission.