How to resist the Grand Rapids Power Structure workshop provides people with lots of ways to confront the most powerful families and organizations

In the second part of my two part workshop that looked at the Grand Rapids Power Structure, I addressed the issue of why it is important to resist those with power in this community, in addition to tactics and strategies on how to resist the local power structure. (Slides available here)

I began this session with some reminders of what the Grand Rapids Power Structure has done and who makes up this group. Next, I listed some talking points around the proposition to resist the GR Power Structure we have to:

• Recognize the interlocking systems of power
• See how local governments are influenced by the power structure and normalize oppression
• What role the commercial media plays by not questioning the power structure
• Always follow the money
• How the non-profit industrial complex takes hush money and doesn’t question the root causes of any given injustice.
• Build grassroots, autonomous people power

Before jumping into tactics and strategies I talk a bit about why it is important that we resist the Grand Rapids Power Structure, with the following points:

• They impose economic, social, political and cultural dynamics on the rest of us, often using public dollars without public input, and primarily for the goal of expanding their wealth and power.
• They influence public policy through campaign contributions and sitting on government committees.
• They use their foundations to fund organizations that promote their ideological agenda and fund non-profits to keep them quiet.
• They use their power to undermine efforts that support organized labor, public education, are anti-LGBTQ and aggressively anti-trans, oppose environmental justice practices, oppose real climate justice practices, perpetuate institutionalize white supremacy, oppose living wage policies and continue to create projects that will ultimately expand their own wealth.

Under the tactic of always follow the money I first provided people with links to resources to find out campaign finance data. For all candidates running for office in Kent County people can access campaign finance data here.  For information on candidates running for state office they can go here https://www.transparencyusa.org/mi/, and for those wanting to track candidates running for federal seats they can access that information at this link.

In addition to know campaign finance information I pointed out that it is critical to:

• Publicize this information
• Make connections to how campaign contributions influence public policy
• Demand candidates refuse to take $$$ from members of the GR Power Structure and PACS

I also looked at examples of how members of the GR Power Structure have people who are on government committees and boards, with examples from Downtown Grand Rapids Inc and the Downtown Development Authority.

We then discussed the following tactics when dealing with government entities and local politicians, such as:

• Attending committee meetings
• Make what is being discussed/decided public
• Push for greater transparency
• Demand Participatory Budgeting
• Pressure Campaigns targeting public policy/public officials
• Boycotts targeting public policy/officials
• Direct Actions targeting public policy/officials

In discussing the above tactics I used three examples from recent history – the Defund the GRPD campaign that began in 2020, resistance to the Three Towers project in 2024, and the Cosecha-led sanctuary policies campaign that began in 2025.

In the next section we talked about other ways to resist the GR Power Structure, such as:

• Investigate where they have influence
• Monitor and expose them by creating media content
• Tax policies
• Attacking their wealth and assets – boycotts, disruptions, civil resistance, an anti-Capitalist analysis
• Creating alternative/autonomous models that reflect how we want the world to look like
• Short term and long term goals

With these tactics we looked a two examples:

• Grand Action 2.0 Projects
• Housing in Grand Rapids

In the next section we specifically talked about resisting and targeting the DeVos family, with 5 broad tactics:

• Boycotting their companies – publicize a list of DeVos companies, create media content, get other organization & institutions to commit to the boycott, public actions at their businesses, disruptive tactics, stickers, flyers, wheat pasting, sidewalk stenciling, enter place of business – order and then leave. Boycotts are only effective if when there is organized disruption of a company’s ability to make a profit.
• Organize those affected by DeVos funded policies – LGBTQ communities, immigrants, labor unions, public school employees, Reproductive Justice groups, those committed to separation of church and state, non-profits that have relied on DeVos Foundation $$, working class people who are living paycheck to paycheck.
• Begin campaigns to organize employees of DeVos-owned businesses – hotels, coffee shops, etc.
• Target politicians that receive campaign contributions from the DeVos cartel.
• Organize ongoing actions at 200 Monroe – DeVos Headquarters on the corner of Monroe & Lyon

However, I reminded people not to forget the other families in the GR Power Structure, along with the organizations that members of the power structure have created.

I ended the session by say that organized people can beat organized money, but that it will not be easy and won’t have over night. Here I included a traditional graphic about the power of organized people, but use the image of the DeVos family as the Big Fish in Grand Rapids posted at the top of this article.