Degroot Family Foundation

The DeGroot Family Foundation is a small, lean, family-governed funder built on the legacy of Peter and Louise De Groot, Dutch immigrants who settled in Southwest Michigan after World War II and built a flower-bulb business that funded the foundation. It is run today by the Leith family (Shirley Leith, President/Treasurer; Eric M. Leith and Jessica M. Leith, Vice Presidents) with Eric Brown of EVB Consulting serving as Secretary/outside advisor — total officer compensation across all four was just $64,000 in FY2023, signaling minimal paid staff and a hands-on, personally-involved board rather than a large program office. The foundation openly describes taking 'a reaching out approach' to its funding areas, meaning a meaningful share of its giving flows through existing relationships and repeat multi-year support rather than purely competitive open calls — evident in its grantee list, where Berrien Community Foundation received 10 separate grants and United Way of Southwest Michigan received 5. First-time applicants should treat this as a relationship-first funder: cold, one-off applications from outside its five-county service area (Allegan, Berrien, Cass, Van Buren, Kalamazoo) are unlikely to be reviewed at all without prior board pre-approval. The realistic path in is (1) an initial email inquiry to info@degrootfamilyfoundation.org to establish eligibility and fit, (2) submission of the formal application (online form, mailed PDF, or email) tied to one of three annual review windows, and (3) — if funded — an expectation of an ongoing, annually-reviewed relationship, since the foundation explicitly allows multi-year commitments of up to three years. Grants skew toward direct human-services and education delivery organizations serving vulnerable populations in Southwest Michigan (homeless youth, at-risk students, food security, tuition assistance) rather than large regional intermediaries, though community foundations and United Ways do receive substantial pass-through-style support. Organizations with no prior local track record or connection to the Coloma-Watervliet/Berrien-Kalamazoo corridor should expect a longer cultivation runway before a first award.

FY2023 (most recent Form 990 on file) shows grants paid of $581,450 against total assets of $9,063,399 and total giving of $760,824 (which includes grants plus officer compensation and administrative costs); the foundation's current public asset figure is $13,454,095. Over the five most recent filed years, grants paid ranged narrowly: $538,100 (2019), $505,543 (2020), $680,475 (2021, the peak year), $617,180 (2022), and $581,450 (2023) — a stable band of roughly $500K-$680K annually with no clear upward or downward trend, funded almost entirely by net investment income ($893,604 in 2023) rather than new contributions (contributions received have been $0 in every year since 2019). Across the tracked grantee history (65 grants, $1,815,810 total, averaging $27,936 per grant), 62 of 65 grants (95%) went to Michigan-based organizations, with only 3 exceptions (1 to DC, 2 to Virginia). The foundation's own typical-grant-size data (based on 17 recent awards) shows a median of $15,000, an average of $29,738, and a range from $618 to $100,000 — meaning most grants are modest, four-figure-to-low-five-figure awards, while a small number of larger, multi-year commitments (Covenant House Michigan, $300,000 across 3 grants; Prevention Works Inc and Cornerstone Alliance, $225,000 each across 3 grants) pull the average well above the median. By program area, human services and youth/family-serving organizations dominate the largest awards (Covenant House Michigan for homeless-youth services, Boys & Girls Club chapters, Prevention Works), education and economic development follow (Kalamazoo Ready 4's and KC Ready 4's tuition assistance at $50,000-$100,000 each, Cornerstone Alliance economic development, Southwestern Michigan College Foundation building renovation), and smaller discretionary-style gifts round out the animal welfare (SPCA of SW Michigan, $65,000/3 grants) and disaster-relief categories (American Red Cross, $62,000/5 grants spanning Hurricane Ian and Maui fire relief).

The foundation sits within a cluster of similarly-sized private foundations (all classified under Philanthropy & Grantmaking, asset base roughly $13.4-13.5M) tracked as its closest peers by size. Notably, none of the five peer foundations identified have a public website on file — DeGroot Family Foundation is the outlier in actively publishing its mission, application form, and deadlines online, which materially lowers the research burden for prospective applicants compared to its peer set.

All six foundations are essentially matched on asset size, but DeGroot is distinguished by geographic concentration (95% of grants stay in Michigan) and by publishing a formal application process, fixed review cycles, and required-document checklist — features that are absent or unverifiable for its peer group. For applicants, this means DeGroot is comparatively easier to research and approach directly than similarly-sized peer foundations, several of which appear to operate with no public-facing grant process at all.

No foundation-specific news coverage, leadership announcements, or new program launches were identified for the DeGroot Family Foundation (Watervliet, MI, EIN 06-1654753) in 2025-2026 web searches — this is a low-visibility family foundation with no press office, and its activity is documented primarily through IRS Form 990 filings rather than public announcements. The most recent filed financials (FY2023) show grants paid of $581,450, and a third-party 990 aggregator (Instrumentl) reports approximately $562,795 disbursed across 19 grants for the 2024 filing year, suggesting continuity of the foundation's established giving band rather than any major expansion or contraction. Leadership has been stable: Shirley Leith has held President/Treasurer since at least the years captured in the data, with Eric M. Leith and Jessica M. Leith (recorded under both the surnames Leith and Claus across filings, likely reflecting a marriage/name change) serving as Vice Presidents, and Eric Brown of EVB Consulting as Secretary. One item of note in the underlying grant data: officer compensation for Eric Brown rose from as low as $3,000-$5,000 in earlier years to $16,000-$17,000 in the most recent years, suggesting an increased administrative/consulting role as the foundation's grantmaking has matured. Search results also turned up an unrelated organization with a similar name, 'The de Groot Foundation' (a literary-arts funder supporting writers via the American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship and Courage to Write grants) — that organization's 2025-2026 activity is not connected to the Watervliet, MI DeGroot Family Foundation covered in this report and has been excluded.

Do not submit a cold, full application without first emailing info@degrootfamilyfoundation.org to confirm eligibility — the foundation explicitly states it is not accepting new applications 'unless pre-approved,' and applications from outside its five core counties (Allegan, Berrien, Cass, Van Buren, Kalamazoo) require board approval to even be considered. Time your outreach to the review calendar: applications are reviewed on three fixed annual cycles tied to March 1 (April review), June 1 (July review), and September 1 (October review) deadlines — given today's date, the next open window is the September 1, 2026 deadline for October 2026 review. Assemble your complete document packet before starting the online form, since the portal does not allow post-submission edits: current IRS 501(c)3 determination letter, current annual operating budget, most recent audited financial statement or Form 990, and an annual report if your organization produces one. In the narrative, lead with a clear executive summary and purpose statement, then a concrete evaluation plan with measurable success metrics — the foundation's own instructions single out 'evaluation plan with success metrics' as a required narrative component, which suggests reviewers weight accountability and outcome tracking heavily. Emphasize direct, on-the-ground service delivery to vulnerable populations in Southwest Michigan; the grantee history strongly favors organizations doing hands-on human services, youth development, and education work (Covenant House Michigan, Boys & Girls Club chapters, Prevention Works) over large regional intermediaries or advocacy organizations. If your organization is a good fit but outside the core service area, note that the foundation has made isolated exceptions for major disaster relief (Hurricane Ian, Maui wildfires via American Red Cross) — position national/regional relief requests accordingly rather than as standard programmatic asks. Because officer compensation and staffing are minimal ($64,000 total across four officers in FY2023), expect a personal, low-bureaucracy review process — a direct, well-organized application is likely to be read by the same small group of family board members each cycle, so consistency and relationship-building across multiple cycles (as seen with repeat grantees like Berrien Community Foundation and United Way of Southwest Michigan) can matter more than a single polished one-off pitch.