MADISON, Wis. — Less than a week after he was elected governor of Wisconsin in 2010, Scott Walker went to Milwaukee at the invitation of his political patron, Michael W. Grebe.

Mr. Grebe was Mr. Walker’s campaign chairman. He was also president of the Bradley Foundation, a leading source of ideas and financing for American conservatives. And the bankers, industrialists and public intellectuals on the foundation’s board wanted to honor the state’s next governor over dinner at Bacchus, a favorite restaurant of the city’s elite.

While the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation could not endorse candidates outright, it provided more than $2 million in grants to think tanks that implicitly championed Mr. Walker’s small-government platform, and $520,000 to Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which is part of a conservative network of groups (including the better-known Americans for Prosperity) that has supported Mr. Walker’s agenda.

Addressing the assembled conservatives who had laid the groundwork for his transformation from county executive to governor, Mr. Walker did not disappoint, pledging to “go big and go bold” in office. In the months that followed, he would deliver on that promise, breaking Wisconsin’s public employee unions in a bitter battle, surviving a recall effort led by angry Democrats and making his fight the centerpiece of an as-yet-unannounced presidential campaign.