Charles Bruner serves as Executive Director of the Child and Family Policy Center (CFPC), a nonprofit organization established in 1989 "to better link research and policy on issues vital to children and families."  He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, and received his B.A. from Macalester College.  He served twelve years as a state legislator in Iowa.

Through CFPC, Bruner provides technical assistance to states, communities, and foundations on child and family issues. Bruner also serves as the national research and evaluator director for the Build Initiative, funded by a consortium of foundations and designed to help states develop comprehensive and equitable early childhood systems. In this capacity, Bruner is co-principal investiger for a joint BUILD-CFPC Learning Collaborative on Health Equity and Young Children, working with leading health practitioner champions and innovators from across the country. Bruner also has served on the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership Board of the Urban Institute and co-chaired its early childhood working group on mapping key indicators related to early childhood by neighborhood and census tract. CFPC is the Kids Count grantee from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.