West Michigan Foundation Watch: The CDV5 Foundation – also known as the Cheri 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. 

“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 CDV5 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, the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation and 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 CDV5 Foundation has $74,339,327 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 CDV5 Foundation distributed their funds, I wanted to point out that Cheri DeVos is the primary DeVos family member who runs this foundation, along with CDV5 Properties,, which does property management for retail, office and residential buildings, like the one I wrote about in 2022.

In addition, it is important to point out that the CDV5 Foundation has provided funds to other DeVos family economic assets, specifically Ottawa Avenue Private Capital $212,047.00 and the RDV Corporation $151,581.00. 

The CDV5 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

• Basecamp Urban Outreach – $20,000
• Fellowship of Christian Athletes – $30,000
• Keystone Community Church – $250,000
• Partners Worldwide – $30,000

Education-centered groups

• Grand Rapids Christian Schools – $810,000
• Hope College – $25,000
• Potters House – $75,000
• Rehoboth Christian School Association – $100,000

DeVos-owned, created or connected groups

• ArtPrize – $25,000 (this was the last year it was being run by Rick DeVos)
• Chicago Cubs Charities – $10,000
• Corewell Health Foundation – $200,000
• Grand Action Foundation 2.0 – $50,000
• Grand Rapids Symphony Society – $450,000
• Helen DeVos Children’s Foundation – $35,000
• West Michigan Aviation Academy Foundation – $105,000 

Groups receiving Hush $ 

• Baxter Community Center – $30,000
• Bethany Christian Services – $40,000
• DA Blodgett/St. Johns – $100,000
• Family Promise of Grand Rapids – $20,000
• Housing Kent – $300,000
• Kids Food Basket – $100,000
• Safe Haven Ministries – $50,000
• Women’s Resource Center – $300,000

These groups all provide some sort of social service – people fleeing domestic violence, those who are housing insecure, etc. 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. 

For example, the CDV5 Foundation gave $300,000 to the group Housing Kent. Housing Kent claims to work towards housing for everyone who lives in Kent County. However, Housing Kent never discusses how the cost of housing, either owning a home or renting, is too expensive for thousands of individuals and families living in Kent County. 

Housing Kent thinks that if more “affordable housing” is built, there can be options for everyone. This is a false solution, since they do not promote social housing policies or funding for social housing, plus they never talk about the need for people to earn a livable income to be able to afford to buy a home or cover the cost of rent in Kent County. You see why they think this, based on those who sit on the board of directors, which os made up of mostly developers, politicians, DeVos personnel and the government affairs person from the GR Chamber of Commerce, Josh Lunger. Lunger was the person from the GR Chamber to prosed the ordinance to criminalize the unhoused and then championed the version of the City ordinance that Grand Rapids adopted.

Then there are the “strategic partners” involved with Housing Kent, which consists of lots of the usual suspects – banks, foundations that are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, government entities, numerous businesses and pro-business groups, along with several non-profit groups that are notorious for not challenging systems of power or addressing roots causes of social problems. These are the exact kinds of groups that the DeVos family foundation love to direct money towards, because they will not threaten the ideological economic and political interests of the most powerful family in West Michigan.