West Michigan Foundation Watch: The Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation

Foundations are a way for members of the Capitalist Class, which made their wealth by exploiting workers, to hide some of their wealth from taxation, only to then turn around and use foundation funds to undermine social movements and generate positive PR for themselves.

The Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation

GRIID has always begun our Foundation Watch work by looking at the foundations associated with the most powerful family in West Michigan, the DeVos family. Last week I looked at the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, but today we’ll take a look at the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation.

I am using the data from the foundation’s 990 document for 2022, which is the most recent year that is available. The Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation has $86,526,683.00 of assets in the foundation’s account, which is just another way that members of the Capitalist Class to be able to hide their money from taxation. 

Before I dive into how the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation distributed to of their funds, I wanted to point out that they spent over $1 million on “professional services”, some of which were just a way of giving money back to themselves. For instance, their foundation paid RDV Corporation (DeVos owned)  $617,137.00 for a “management fee.”  The foundation also spent another $294,728.00 for a “management fee” to Ottawa Avenue Private Capital, which is also owned by the DeVos family. Other expenses for the Doug and Maria Foundation went to:

• Basis Policy Research, which has an office on Wealthy St, and does consulting and research on education policy and practices, with an emphasis on private and Charter School education systems, received $141,661.00.
• Seyferth PR received $71,846.00 as a communications consultant.
• Tiffany McCurley Bierlein Designs LLC received $51,075.00 for consultation services.

I guess when you have over $86 million in assets in your foundation, you can afford to spend over $1 million on services, especially when most of that goes back to entities you already own. 

The Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation made contributions to dozens of entities in 2022, but there are some clear categories of groups they contributed to, such as the Religious Right, Think Tanks, Education-centered groups, and social service entities, to name a few. Below is a listing of each from these categories, with a dollar amount.

Religious Right

• Covenant House Michigan – $25,000
• Keystone Community Church – $370,000
• Life International Inc. – $30,000
• Luis Palau Association – $150,000
• National Christian Foundation – $366,000
• Partners Worldwide – $15,000
• Pregnancy Resource Center – $30,000
• Young Life – $55,000

Far Right Think Tanks/Pro-Capitalist groups

• Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty – $80,000
• American Enterprise Institute – $350,000
• Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce – $59,500
• Mackinac Center – $125,000
• National Constitution Center – $6,522,500
• Philanthropy Roundtable – $25,000
• Stand Together Foundation – $1,000,000

Education-centered groups

• Calvin University – $100,000
• Grand Rapids Christian Schools – $450,000
• Grand Rapids Public Schools Foundation – $145,000
• GVSU – $15,000
• K Connect. – $125,000
• Leading Educators Inc. – $900,000
• Living Stones Academy – $90,000
• Potters House – $225,000
• Rehoboth Christian School Association – $100,000
• Talent 2025 Inc. – $25,000
• Wake Forest University – $265,000

DeVos-owned, created or connected groups

• ArtPrize – $25,000 (this was the last year it was being run by Rick DeVos)
• Corewell Health Foundation – $362,000
• Grand Action Foundation 2.0 – $50,000
• West Michigan Aviation Academy Foundation – $60,000 

Groups receiving Hush $ 

• Baxter Community Center – $40,000
• Bethany Christian Services – $116,000
• DA Blodgett/St. Johns – $150,000
• Degage Ministries – $25,000
• Exalta Health – $30,000
• ICCF Community Homes – $30,000
• Kids Food Basket – $7,500
• Safe Haven Ministries – $70,500
• The Other Way Ministries – $30,000

These groups all provide some sort of social service – people fleeing domestic violence, those who are housing insecure, people with disabilities, adoption and immigration. There are root causes to all of these issues, but these groups are not likely to address root causes and larger systems of oppression. When the DeVos family foundations make contributions, this will increase the likelihood that systems of oppression will not be addressed by these groups.