TCF is a progressive non-partisan think tank, founded in 1919 and initially funded by Edward Filene, a man best known for his store's Basement (which was established as a way to make goods affordable to working people). At Mr. Filene's death in 1937, he was a close associate of President Franklin Roosevelt, and one of the leading liberal businessmen in the country. Along the way he was a leading champion of fair workplaces and employee ownership strategies, all with an eye to ensuring that economic opportunity is available to all. TCF is an operating foundation, which means it does not make grants. Instead, it issues analyses and convenes and promotes the best thinkers and thinking across a range of public policy questions. Its work today focuses on issues of equality and opportunity in the United States, and how American values can best be sustained and advanced in a world of more diffuse power.