WASHINGTON — It pays to be a cause that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos cares about.
In the year before Ms. DeVos was nominated for her post, the billionaire philanthropist and her husband poured money into more than 100 organizations across a broad spectrum of causes. The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation reported $14.3 million in charitable giving, according to 2016 tax filings provided by the organization to The New York Times.
The beneficiaries are a diverse group, many aligning with causes the DeVos family has championed: the city of Grand Rapids, publicly funded vouchers for private schools, conservative politics and Christian organizations, low-income children and families, innovation and the arts. A few organizations reflect the more complex picture of Ms. DeVos that has emerged since her rocky nomination process.
In accord with her ethics agreement, Ms. DeVos resigned from the foundation the day after she was nominated for secretary of education.
Here's are the highlights.
Xprize Foundation, Inc.
$3.75 million
The Xprize Foundation is a nonprofit that puts on million-dollar global competitions to foster innovation. The organization's mission statement is to "transform how people think about the world's biggest problems and incentivize their solutions." For example, one Xprize competition was for a team to "autonomously and inconspicuously trigger an emergency alert while transmitting information to a network of community responders, all within 90 seconds."
Grand Rapids, Mich.
$3.1 million
Anyone's who has been to Grand Rapids, Mich., is likely to run into the DeVos name somewhere, whether it be on a street sign or a hospital or a convention center. The amount of donations attached to organizations with a Grand Rapids address last year was about $3.1 million. The foundation also donated to several organizations across the state, including Detroit where the foundation granted $150,000 to grow businesses last year.
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University of Maryland, College Park, Foundation, Inc.
$750,000
The DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, College Park, is training the next leaders of cultural institutions, such as museums and galleries, arts schools and libraries, symphonies and cinemas. The institute was named after the DeVos family in 2010 when Ms. DeVos and her husband donated $22.5 million to help the institute expand.
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy
$750,000
The Washington-based research organization is often a conservative voice on a range of political and educational issues. However, fellows there have criticized the recent expansion of 529 plans to pay for private-school tuition, and several scholars there have been highly critical of President Trump.
Willow Creek Association
$650,000
This Illinois-based Christian leadership organization was a big beneficiary of foundation funding. The organization's mission is to develop Christian leaders, and its mission of "helping Christians grow their leadership to maximize Kingdom impact." This echoes Ms. DeVos' own stated life's mission to "expand God's Kingdom," a principle shaped by her Calvinist upbringing.
The collection plate at the DeVos's home church runneth over. Last year, the Foundation donated $350,000 to the Mars Hill Bible Church, where Ms. DeVos has been a member and an elder for years.
Potter's House
$600,000
What They Do: Potter's House, an urban, Christian school that DeVos has supported for nearly 30 years, serves predominantly poor, minority students in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ms. DeVos has referenced Potter's House in numerous interviews and speeches as having inspired her to advocate for low-income families to have more educational choices. Ms. DeVos sponsors tuition for entire classes at the school.
Grand Rapids Christian School Association
$350,000
The DeVos's are known to be very generous to Grand Rapids Christian High School, the alma mater of their four children. Often criticized for sending her children to private schools, Ms. DeVos told The Times that she chose Grand Rapids Christian because she wanted to continue her family's tradition of educating her children in Christian-based schools. But she also wanted her children to be educated in a more diverse setting than they would have had in the public schools of the wealthy suburb of Ada, Mich., where the family lives. The DeVos's also gave $55,000 to the Ada Christian School Society.
Success Academy Charter Schools, Inc.
$150,000
The New York-based charter school chain is among the most high-profile in the nation, and its leader Eva Moskowitz is arguably as controversial as Ms. DeVos herself. Ms. Moskowitz's recent book lends insight into the reform movement that self-described reformers like Ms. DeVos has championed. Ms. Moskowitz praised Ms. DeVos's nomination for secretary.
The 74 Media
$400,000
The DeVos Foundation invested in the company, co-founded by former television journalist Campbell Brown, that describes itself as a nonpartisan education news site. Its namesake is the 74 million children in America that will receive an education. Ms. Brown wrote an opinion piece about Ms. DeVos's nomination, calling out inaccurate claims on social media that led to Ms. DeVos being "misleadingly caricatured."
Alliance for School Choice
$290,000
Several organization that Ms. DeVos was connected to in her advocacy work received donations. Among them is the Alliance for School Choice, also known as the American Federation for Children, an organization that Ms. DeVos chaired before her nomination. Other school choice advocacy organizations on the list include the Great Lakes Education Foundation, which received $200,000. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education received $52,000. Ms. DeVos was a keynote speaker at the Foundation's national conference earlier this month.
Pregnancy Resource Center
Amount Donated: $20,000
What They Do: The organization provides a range of services for pregnant women, including ultrasounds and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. But also featured prominently on the organization's website is an option for "My Choices" and "Abortion Information."
Liberal leaning organizations have accused the resource center of advertising the abortion clinic as a way to talk pregnant women out of the procedure. But the organization provides a lot of information on them, including how to help families through them and referrals for where they can be performed.
The resource center is certainly no Parent Parenthood — and it makes clear that it would like women to exhaust their choices before choosing abortion.
But it's also a stark contrast to the Right to Life of Michigan Educational Foundation, which received $25,000 from the Foundation. Its take on abortions: "Some choices aren't worthy of a woman."
Institute for Justice
Amount Donated: $35,000
The institute files and funds a variety of civil liberties lawsuits, including several defending school voucher and tax credit programs that help fund private school tuition.
Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
Amount Donated: $155,000
The research organization describes its mission as the promotion of "a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles." It also publishes a journal.
Boy Scouts of America
Amount Donated: $305,000
The traditional Boy Scouts of America is undergoing its own evolution, admitting girls in the next two years.
Holland Rescue Mission
$201,000
What They Do: The Christian-based organization helps the homeless in the town where Ms. DeVos was born and raised. It offers a "offer a wide range of Christ-driven services that address the root issues of homelessness to help restore and transform lives," according to its website. The DeVos family funds dozens of organizations that help low-income families, and features prominently on its website the Inner City Christian Federation, which builds affordable housing in Grand Rapids.
Kids Hope USA
$235,000
Kids Hope USA organization pairs church members with at-risk kids, and it was Ms. DeVos's door into the Grand Rapids Public School, where she served as a mentor for several years. It was through the program that she met a young woman named Angie a decade ago, who she still mentors today. Angie told The New York Times in May that it was difficult to watch Ms. DeVos be criticized in the media for not caring about people.
Embracing the Journey
$25,000
The Georgia-based organization's mission is to support Christian families that have lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual children. The organization's mission is to "help reconcile the LGBTQ community and their families, while helping them move closer to Jesus Christ where they can experience healing and personal growth." The organization is run by a couple who said they have "immersed themselves in the LGBTQ community," since learning their son was gay 15 years ago. Their goal is to "embrace their journey and encourage them to love their children well," according to their website.
Heraion Foundation
$30,000
The DeVos family helped to fund a little-known humanitarian effort to defeat the Islamic State, or ISIS — run largely out of a Brooklyn apartment. The Heraion Foundation, known as HERA, is a veteran-run nonprofit organization that started in 2015 to bring "a new full-spectrum approach to counter-extremist humanitarianism. A profile of the group said that when its founder was not on the ground in Iraq, he worked out of his apartment.
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