West Michigan Foundation Watch: The Jandernoa 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

Jandernoa 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, the Dan and Pamela DeVos Foundation, and finally the CDV5 Foundation. Last week, we also look at the other Amway fortune family, with a focus on the David and Carol Van Andel Foundation and the Steve and Amy Van Andel Foundation. Today, I want to look at another member of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, Michael Jandernoa and his foundation. 

I am using the data from the foundation’s 990 document for 2022, which is the most recent year that is available. The Jandernoa Foundation has significantly smaller amount of assets, specifically $4,383,771 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 Jandernoa Foundation distributed their funds, I wanted to point out that the foundation pays William Lawrence $163,214.00 to be the Executive Director, and they pay $253,487.00 for management/investments to 42 North Partners, which is a company owned by Michael Jandernoa.

The Jandernoa Foundation made contributions to dozens of entities in 2022, but there are some clear categories of groups they contributed to, such as the Religious groups, political organizations, 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 Groups

• Degage Ministries – $100,000
• Diocese of Grand Rapids – $40,000
• Help Pregnancy Aid – $100,000
• Mel Trotter Ministries – $62,5000

Political Organizations

• Michigan Colleges Alliance – $40,000
• Gerald R Ford Foundation – $30,000

Education-centered groups

• Catholic Central High School – $2,400,000
• Davenport University – $300,000
• San Juan Diego Academy – $100,000

Groups receiving Hush $ 

• Feeding America – $200,000
• Heart of West Michigan United Way – $509,350
• Women’s Resource Center – $50,000

The Jandernoa Foundation provided funding to numerous Catholic entities, not only because Jandernoa is Catholic, but also because he supports the Catholic Church’s anti-Abortion stance, which is why the foundation gave money to Help Pregnancy Aid. 

You will also notice that the foundation contributed to the Michigan Colleges Alliance, which is a group that support private colleges in Michigan and pushes for public money to go to private education. The foundation contribution to the Michigan Colleges Alliance compliments the work that Michael Jandernoa has done with the West Michigan Policy Forum, specifically to influence education policy in the state, as I noted in an article from 2019.

Lastly, none of the groups receiving hush money listed above challenge systems of power, nor do they seek to address the root causes of societal problems like housing insecurity or food insecurity.

In addition, the Jandernoa Foundation gets to buy their silence, making it very improbable that these groups will speak out against the public policy decisions that are adopted by the politicians that Jandernoa and other members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure are funding. In fact, according to FollowtheMoney.org, Jandernoa has given $4,716,171 to 346 different filers spanning 29 years, mostly to GOP candidates. Like most private foundations, their owners create social problems through exploitation and buying politicians, then turn around and contribute to charity groups that serve the very same people harmed by their wealth.