Developing Great Relationships Inc.

The most important strategic fact about Developing Great Relationships Inc. is that it is not a conventional grantmaking foundation grant seekers can apply to. IRS filings show grants_paid = $0 in every reported year (2019-2023) and an empty grantee roster — this is a private operating foundation under IRC rules, meaning it spends its own resources directly on its own charitable programs rather than distributing cash grants to outside 501(c)(3)s. Its live website confirms this: DGR is a Pella, Iowa-based ministry that delivers a full-day 'Unity Workshop' ($89/couple, church-hosted) and a separate multi-day 'Marriage Love Restored' couples' intensive, both staffed and run by DGR itself. The organization is led by Stanley J Vermeer (President) and Alma L Vermeer (Secretary), both drawing $0 compensation — a hallmark of a small, family-stewarded operating foundation, distinct from the much larger, unrelated Vermeer Charitable Foundation/Vermeer Corporation entity also based in Pella. For a grant seeker, there is effectively no viable funding-request pathway here: there is no LOI process, no application form, no board review cycle for outside proposals, and no history of third-party grants in the data. The only realistic engagement is a programmatic partnership — e.g., a church, marriage ministry, or family-services nonprofit inviting DGR to run a Unity Workshop or referring couples to Marriage Love Restored — approached through the site's workshop-inquiry contact form, not a funding application. Organizations that mistake this entity for an open funder (a reasonable error, since its IRS/NTEE classification tags it 'Religion' and 'is_grantmaker: true' in aggregator databases) will waste outreach effort. If your work involves premarital or marriage education, church partnerships, or family strengthening programs in Iowa, the productive move is a collaboration pitch, not a grant ask — and given all-volunteer leadership and a lean structure, expect a slow, informal, relationship-first response rather than a structured review process.

Developing Great Relationships Inc. reported $0 in grants paid to outside organizations across every year with data (2012-2024) — there is no median grant size, no grant range, and no grantee list to analyze because the foundation does not fund external organizations. What IRS filings label 'total_giving' is program spending on DGR's own workshops and retreats: it rose from $288,630 (2012) to $289,302 (2013), $272,231 (2014), $260,024 (2015), then jumped to $277,767 (2019), $451,650 (2020), $520,587 (2021), $619,178 (2022), and $629,333 (2023) — roughly 2.2x growth in program spend over the 2015-2023 span, consistent with a ministry scaling up in-person workshop delivery post-2020. Total assets grew from $4.1M (2012) to $8.5M (2024), essentially doubling over 12 years. Notably, asset growth is driven far more by investment returns than new outside contributions: net investment income exceeded contributions received in five of the last six reported years (e.g., 2019: $392,557 in net investment income against $0 in contributions received; 2021: $1,012,544 in net investment income against just $66,220 in contributions). Contributions received have been volatile and generally modest ($0-$120K in most years) except for a $1,000,360 spike in 2015 and $405,572 in 2023. Officer compensation is $0 in every reported year — an all-volunteer leadership model. With grants_paid at $0 throughout, there is no program-area or geographic breakdown of external funding to report; 100% of program spend stays inside DGR's own workshop/retreat operations.

The five closest peer foundations by asset size share DGR's 'Religion' NTEE classification and sit within roughly $200K of its $8.5M asset base, but the available data does not confirm any of them actively fund outside organizations either — several have no public website at all, which is itself a signal common among small family/operating foundations in this asset tier.

DGR is unusual even among this peer set in having a public-facing, actively marketed program (workshops, social media, a modern website) — most peers of similar size in the 'Religion' NTEE bucket appear to be closed family funds or single-beneficiary vehicles with no web presence at all. That visibility makes DGR easy to find but, per the funding-pattern data above, no easier to get a grant from than its silent peers, since none of these six entities show external grantmaking activity in the available records.

No 2025-2026 news coverage, press releases, or grant announcements were found for Developing Great Relationships Inc. in web searches, and the organization does not appear to issue public statements about its finances or leadership beyond required IRS filings. The most recent financial data available is fiscal year 2024, showing total assets of $8,504,165 and total revenue of $1,030,187 — both up modestly from FY2023 ($8,183,313 in assets; $786,656 in revenue). The most recent full financial detail (FY2023) shows $629,333 in program spending, a net investment income of $203,082, and $405,572 in contributions received. Leadership has remained stable and unchanged across all reported filings: Stanley J Vermeer as President and Alma L Vermeer as Secretary, both uncompensated. On the program side, the organization's current live website promotes an active, ongoing calendar of 'Unity Workshop' seminars at partner churches and continues to reference its 'Marriage Love Restored' intensive retreat as a parallel offering — both appear to be steady-state, ongoing programs rather than new initiatives. Given the complete absence of press coverage, prospective partners or ministry collaborators should expect direct outreach via the organization's own contact channels (phone: 641-621-9500 or 641-628-2068; email: info@dgrpella.org) to be the only reliable way to get current programmatic information, since no third-party source is tracking this organization's activity in real time.

There is no grant application to optimize here — treat any outreach to Developing Great Relationships Inc. as a programmatic partnership pitch, not a funding request, since IRS records show $0 in grants paid to outside organizations in every year on file. If your organization is a church, marriage/family ministry, or premarital-education nonprofit and you want to work with DGR, the realistic paths are: (1) invite DGR to deliver a Unity Workshop at your church or organization — this is their core, actively marketed offering at $89/couple with a defined 8:30am-3:00pm Saturday format; (2) refer couples in crisis or seeking deeper work to the 'Marriage Love Restored' 3-day intensive; or (3) propose a co-branded event or curriculum-sharing arrangement if your mission overlaps with relationship/marriage strengthening. Approach through the website's contact form or by phone (641-621-9500), addressed generally rather than to a named program officer — the organization has no grants staff, only President Stanley J Vermeer and Secretary Alma L Vermeer, both volunteers, so expect informal, relationship-driven responses rather than a structured review timeline. The most common mistake would be submitting a standard grant proposal, budget, or LOI package expecting foundation-style review — nothing in the public record (website, social media, IRS filings, or third-party directories like CauseIQ and GrantAdvisor) indicates this entity reviews or funds unsolicited proposals from outside nonprofits. If your actual goal is Iowa faith-based or marriage-ministry funding, consider that the similarly-named but unrelated Vermeer Charitable Foundation (charitable.vermeer.com, also Pella, IA) is a genuine active corporate grantmaker taking applications via a login-based portal — do not conflate the two organizations despite the shared Pella location and Vermeer surname.