West Michigan Foundation Watch: The Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation

“In any case, the hidden hand of of foundations can control the course of social change and deflect anger to targets other than elite power.” 

 – Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy

The Dan and Pamela 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. GRIID has already looked at the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation, along with the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation. Today, I want to look at the Dan and Pamela 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 Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation has $6,114,272 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 Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation distributed their funds, I wanted to point out that Dan and Pamela own the following components of the DeVos family empire – DP Fox, Fox Motors, the Pamela Roland Collection, the Grand Rapids Griffins, and are a partner in CWD Real Estate Investments, as we noted in Part II in the series on the Grand Rapids Power Structure.

The Dan and Pamela 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

Keystone Community Church – $75,000

Far Right Think Tanks/Pro-Capitalist groups

Mackinac Center – $375,000

Education-centered groups

• Davenport University – $252,500
• GVSU – $425,000
• * Northwood University – $20,090,000 (Dan DeVos is on the Board of Trustees)

DeVos-owned, created or connected groups

• ArtPrize – $25,000 (this was the last year it was being run by Rick DeVos)
• Chicago Cubs Charities – $30,000
• Corewell Health Foundation – $225,000
• Grand Action Foundation 2.0 – $50,000
• * Grand Rapids Art Museum – $250,000 (Pamela DeVos is an honorary Trustee)
• Grand Rapids Griffins Youth Foundation – $52,560
• * Grand Rapids Symphony Society – $450,000 (Pamela Roland is a Board member)
• * Hope Network Foundation – $425,000 (Dan DeVos is a Board member)
• * John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – $200,000 (Pamela DeVos is a Trustee)
• West Michigan Aviation Academy Foundation – $65,000 
• * Whitney Museum of American Art – $550,000 (Pamela DeVos is on the Board of Trustees)

Groups receiving Hush $ 

• Baxter Community Center – $10,000
• Bethany Christian Services – $50,000
• Family Promise of Grand Rapids – $50,000

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. 

The Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation gives less money to religious groups and right wing think tanks, compared to other DeVos Family Foundations. However, where they do stand out is in contributions to entities that either Dan or Pamela DeVos are board members. (Wherever you see an *) These groups receive millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Dan and Pamela Foundation, which means they not only have a significant say in how their contributions are used, they get to influence policies in the organizations that they are board members of. In these cases they are doubling up on the kind of influence they have.