Since our founding in 1928, the Brush Foundation has worked to advance reproductive health and rights through targeted philanthropy. Charles F. Brush, a noted Cleveland inventor and industrialist, began the Foundation with approximately $500,000. With additional contributions since its inception, the foundation has made grants of more than eleven million dollars over nearly ninety years of grantmaking.

The Brush Foundation’s first grant of $5,000 was awarded in 1929 to establish a birth control clinic in Cleveland. Since 2008, public policy and advocacy have been the primary focus of the Brush Foundation’s grantmaking. Currently the Foundation focuses its grantmaking on the state of Ohio with a goal of ensuring access to reproductive health care, supporting culture change to reduce abortion stigma, and advancing reproductive justice through an intersectional approach.

Personal involvement and innovation by board members has been one of the continuing strengths of the Brush Foundation. The late Dorothy Brush, the daughter-in-law of the Founder, best exemplified this. She was one the founders of the Cleveland Planned Parenthood clinic. She crusaded with Margaret Sanger and, with Mrs. Sanger and others, brought into being the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Today’s board includes one Brush family member and leaders from the fields of reproductive health, rights, and justice and philanthropy.

The Brush Foundation’s leadership is proud of our longstanding commitment to these critical issues. In the current political climate, we are acutely aware that more work is needed across the globe to build a world where we all have the power to make decisions about our bodies, our families, and our future. Starting in the state of Ohio, we remain dedicated to ensuring that reproductive health care worldwide is acceptable, affordable, effective and safe.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Stites

Brush Foundation President