# Richard DeVos Richard Marvin "Rich" DeVos Sr. (1926-2018) was the co-founder of [[Amway]], the patriarch of the [[DeVos Family Ecosystem]], and one of the formative architects of the modern American Christian right's donor infrastructure. He and high-school friend Jay Van Andel founded Amway in 1959 out of a Grand Rapids basement; together they built what became the largest direct-selling company in the world, with $7B+ in annual revenue across 100+ countries. DeVos used that fortune to fund roughly four decades of evangelical Christian, anti-abortion, Republican, and free-market causes — making him, alongside [[Jerry Falwell]], [[Paul Weyrich]], and Edgar Prince, one of the founding funders of what would become the **fusion religious-right / corporate-libertarian coalition** that dominates modern conservatism. ## Amway Co-founded with Jay Van Andel in 1959. The company's multi-level-marketing model — independent distributors recruiting downstream distributors — scaled into a global direct-sales operation selling household products, nutritional supplements, beauty, and home-care items. A **landmark 1979 FTC ruling** held that Amway was not an illegal pyramid scheme, establishing the legal floor that essentially every modern MLM stands on. DeVos served as president from 1959 until 1993, when he passed the role to his eldest son [[Dick DeVos]]. Beyond the product line, Amway was a **cultural operation**. DeVos and Van Andel infused the distributor network with a specific fusion worldview — Christian Reformed theology, American free-enterprise patriotism, and individual-entrepreneurial aspiration, delivered through massive motivational rallies that combined product presentation, personal testimonials, and political content. The company was the first large-scale proof that conservative Christian politics could be embedded in commercial operations — a model that [[Hobby Lobby]], [[Chick-fil-A]], and later Christian corporate actors would replicate. ## Political Giving and Network - **RNC Finance Chair (1981-1982):** Under Reagan's first term — the apex Republican institutional position. - **[[Council for National Policy]]:** Longtime member of CNP, the tri-annual private coordinating body of the American religious right. The CNP membership is one of the hardest pieces of evidence for the DeVos family's direct role in the *coordinated* institutional religious right (vs. parallel giving). - **[[Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation]]:** Established as a family giving vehicle. Of approximately $100M granted between 1999 and 2014, **about half went to Christian organizations** — a representative slice of the family's 40+ year evangelical giving pattern. - **[[Focus on the Family]]:** $1.3M+ documented. [[Family Research Council]]: major support (and Rich's daughter-in-law Betsy's father Edgar Prince provided the seed funding). - **[[Prison Fellowship Ministries]]** ([[Charles Colson]]'s organization): longtime supporter. - **Luis Palau Evangelistic Association:** $6M. - **Haggai Institute:** $1M. - **Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church** (D. James Kennedy): $1M+. - **Foundation for Traditional Values, [[Heritage Foundation]], [[Acton Institute]], [[Hillsdale College]]:** all major recipients. This giving pattern was coordinated with the broader fusion strategy of the emerging religious right — Paul Weyrich's institution-building, Jerry Falwell's [[Moral Majority]], [[James Dobson]]'s family-issue mobilization, and the emerging direct-mail / television-ministry operators. Rich DeVos was among the half-dozen most consequential funders of the whole project. ## Orlando Magic Bought the NBA franchise in 1991 for $85M. The franchise grew into a $4B+ valuation by the mid-2020s and remains in family hands under son Dan DeVos's operational leadership. Less politically consequential than the other family ventures, but a meaningful source of wealth appreciation. ## Book — *Believe!* (1975) and *Compassionate Capitalism* (1993) DeVos's personal theology-of-business publications laid out the Amway-era fusion in print. Core themes: free enterprise as a biblical institution; individual initiative as a form of Christian stewardship; distrust of government intervention in economic life. These books circulated through the Amway distributor network and the broader evangelical business community, effectively functioning as the *early devotional literature of the prosperity-theology-adjacent Christian-business movement*. They are not the same thing as the [[Kenneth Copeland]] / [[Joel Osteen]] prosperity gospel, but they are upstream of it — the respectable theological version that the retail prosperity ministries would later popularize. ## Ideological Role Rich DeVos represents the **Dutch Reformed / Christian Reformed Church** wing of the American right — Kuyperian rather than Pentecostal, Calvinist rather than charismatic, small-d democratic rather than apocalyptic. This lineage is the specific ideological tradition the DeVos dynasty continues to operate within. It matters because Reformed theology's "sovereignty of spheres" doctrine — Abraham Kuyper's claim that "every square inch" of creation belongs to Christ — provides a theological justification for active Christian engagement in *all* domains (education, media, business, politics, arts) rather than retreat into a separate Christian sphere. This is the theological root of why the family treats policy arenas like school choice as *recoverable territory* rather than neutral zones. ## Health and Later Years Received a heart transplant in 1997 — one of the longest-surviving heart-transplant patients at the time. The Richard DeVos Heart & Lung Transplant Program at Spectrum Health Grand Rapids (now Corewell Health) is named for him. Died September 6, 2018, age 92. ## Legacy His sons [[Dick DeVos]] and [[Doug DeVos]] inherited the operational and political leadership. His daughter-in-law [[Betsy DeVos]] — Edgar Prince's daughter, married to Dick since 1979 — became the family's most politically consequential operator. His other son Dan DeVos runs DP Fox Ventures and Orlando Magic operations. The grandson generation (Rick DeVos and others) is beginning to surface in West Michigan venture capital and political operations. The dynasty built around him continues to deploy the fortune and the ideology he established. ## See Also - [[DeVos Family Ecosystem]] - [[Amway]] - [[Dick DeVos]] - [[Betsy DeVos]] - [[Doug DeVos]] - [[Erik Prince]] - [[Council for National Policy]] - [[Family Research Council]] - [[Heritage Foundation]] - [[Hillsdale College]] - [[Christian Nationalism]] - [[The Unholy Alliance]]