The Amway founder who bankrolled conservative causes

Few people have loomed larger in American business and politics over the past six decades than Richard DeVos. He made billions of dollars as the cofounder of Amway, bought the NBA’s Orlando Magic, and was a major benefactor of conservative causes and candidates. He authored five inspirational and autobiographical books and became a sought-after motivational speaker preaching the gospel of “compassionate capitalism”—a theme George W. Bush adopted for his first presidential campaign. DeVos credited his entrepreneurial spirit to his father, an electrician who was fired after years on the job during the Great Depression. “Own your own business, son,” his father advised. “Work hard at it. Set high goals for yourself and never give up, no matter what.” Raised in Grand Rapids, Mich., DeVos had a hardscrabble childhood, said The Wall Street Journal. After his father lost his job, the DeVos family moved in with relatives and young Richard helped “one of his grandfathers sell fruit and vegetables door-todoor, an experience that he said taught him the art of salesmanship.” Following a stint in the Army Air Corps during World War II, DeVos and a former school friend, Jay Van Andel, began experimenting with business ventures, said The New York Times. They ran a drive-in restaurant and “a failed charter schooner service, which almost led to their drowning,” and in 1959 founded Amway, short for American Way. It relied on an army of door-to-door salespeople, or “distributors,” to hawk everything from household cleaners to hardware and cosmetics. “By the 1980s, Amway had achieved sales of $1 billion a year worldwide.” Critics called its sales strategy a pyramid scheme—its distributors worked on commission and increased their earnings by recruiting other distributors—“and in 1975 the Federal Trade Commission accused it of being just that.” But the commission later dropped the charge, declaring the firm’s business strategy “a legal multilevel marketing approach.” With the growing success of Amway, DeVos extended his “influence to politics and society,” said The Washington Post. He helped fund “bedrock conservative organizations” such as the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, and, motivated by his evangelical Christian faith, “contributed to statewide efforts throughout the country to ban same-sex marriage.” DeVos stepped down as Amway president in 1993; his son Doug now leads the company. But he remained active in politics, supporting measures to provide taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents who want to send their children to private school—a cause championed by his daughter-in-law, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. And DeVos continued to believe in the power of a can-do attitude. “If you fail at something, you don’t have to despair,” he said. “There’s another opportunity for success just around the corner.”