Michael S. Joyce, RIP

Shortly after Michael S. Joyce died in February at the age of 63, tributes started pouring in from the conservative grantees who had benefited from his work as executive director of the John M. Olin Foundation (1979-1985) and president of the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation (1985-2001). But Joyce’s admirers range across the political spectrum. “Of all the foundation CEOs in the past 40 years, he had the greatest impact on our society and its institutions,” says Pablo Eisenberg, founder of the Center for Community Change and a dean of left-wing philanthropy.

Joyce was quite simply one of philanthropy’s great venture capitalists. In its obituary, the Economist called him “one of the leading architects of the conservative renaissance that reshaped America” in recent decades. He wasin the business of funding ideas, and his name will forever be linked to the rise of school choice, welfare reform, and faith-based initiatives. He was especially brilliant when it came to leveraging his ideas: he took the best ones, worked to introduce them at local levels, and made sure that their success had national implications. “Mike fundamentally understood the transcendent role of philanthropy in addressing unmet needs and creating civil society,” says Daniel S. Peters, president of the Ruth & Lovett Peters Foundation and chairman of the Philanthropy Roundtable.

Joyce was born to a family of blue-collar Democrats in Cleveland in 1942. He attended Catholic schools and then Kent State University, where he hoped to play on the gridiron. “He loved football and was pretty good at it