Mark and Elisabeth Michaelis, owners of IntelliTect Corp., a high-end software architecture and development company based in Spokane Valley, have made philanthropy—and particularly the fight against injustice and extreme poverty—a key element of their business approach.

Working with various organizations, the couple now funnels more than half of their business profits to charitable causes, mostly in Africa but also to some humanitarian efforts in other areas of the world and locally, Mark Michaelis says.

Their donations have provided sole or partial funding for things such as a much-needed water well in Tanzania; a school room in South Sudan; and teachers’ salaries, textbooks, and a van for a school in Antiqua, Guatemala.

Michaelis is hesitant to talk about how much money he and his wife donated to the various causes since launching IntelliTect 10 years ago, but they calculate the figure to be more than $2 million over that time period. As an example of the efforts they fund, they spent $50,000 to support the work of International Justice Mission to strengthen the legal rights of women in Northern Uganda.

Eric Edmonds, a history teacher at Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene and close friend of Mark Michaelis who also works part time as IntelliTect’s philanthropy coordinator, says the Michaelises focus their financial help in areas of the world where they see the most extreme need.

“Desperation (is a big factor) … where can the money make the biggest changes in people’s lives,” and right now much of that most extreme need is in Africa, he says.

He and Michaelis say 85 percent of the company’s charitable giving goes to causes in that country, with 5 percent going to other international initiatives and 10 percent going to local organizations.

Michaelis says, “I look at it as an investment. We’re investing. We’re just investing in a different way than someone else might.”

IntelliTect, the company that he heads, provides software design and related services to a range of clients, perhaps three-fourths of which are located in the Inland Northwest, he says. Its clients have included companies such as Avista Corp., Itron Inc., Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories LLC, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Hagadone Corp., Hecla Mining Co., Idaho Power Co., and Microsoft Corp.

Its offices are located on the fourth floor of the River View Corporate Center, at 16201 E. Indiana, where it occupies about 2,000 square feet of space. In all, it has 25 full-time employees, and it also uses five to 10 contractors as needed and has an offshore team in Romania, Michaelis says.

Although IntelliTect devotes a portion of its website to its philanthropic efforts and philosophy, Michaelis is wary about being the subject of news media attention about it for fear of being seen as self-promoting. His willingness to discuss the charitable giving he and his wife engage in stems partly, he says, from a desire to help motivate others to do the same.

His intense interest in Africa stems partly from having been raised there after being born in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa, and having seen first-hand the extreme poverty in some parts of that country. His family moved to the U.S. when he was 13. He moved to the Spokane area from the Chicago area in 2001 and took a job as a software architect at Itron, remaining there until 2008.

Michaelis says he and his wife have always supported philanthropic causes—dating back to when he was making less than $30,000 a year, but still setting aside 15 percent for charitable giving—and “starting the company, we just continued it.”

The two were married in January 1994, and Michaelis says they fulfilled a shared desire to go to Mozambique, an impoverished country in southeast Africa, by traveling there and working there with orphaned and street children from June 1997 to January 1998.

 “It was a great experience, and I think it changed our lives significantly. I think it helped me understand how the rest of the world lives,” he says.

While Michaelis and his wife were in Mozambique, he says, they informally adopted a child there named Sergio and supported him through school up through his graduation from law school last year.

The Michaelises also have three children of their own, and Mark Michaelis says he and his wife started to include the children in their charitable activities as each of them turned 10 years old. “This started by taking them to the Third World as a way of demonstrating that Spokane (and the comforts of life that Americans in general enjoy) is not normal.” 

For example, their 15-year-old son Benjamin has been to South Africa and Mozambique, their 13-year-old daughter Hanna has been to Mozambique and Madagascar, and their 10-year-old daughter Abigail has been to South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Mozambique.

Of his and his wife’s business philosophy with IntelliTect, Michaelis says, “It’s not about lining our pockets. It’s about changing the world.”

They try to convey that focus to the company’s employees, he says. Edmonds, IntelliTect’s philanthropy coordinator, says employees don’t choose where the money goes, but he gives them updates several times a year on the status of its charitable giving efforts.

Also, he says, “IntelliTect employees are involved at a level of their own choosing in IntelliTect’s Spokane-area philanthropy. We have employees who have volunteered time, given money, and offered expertise to the people and organizations IntelliTect partners with in the Spokane area.”

That has included nonprofits such as Hearth Homes, the Northwest Connect Hands Up Non-Food Pantry, Union Gospel Mission, and Spokane Valley Partners, he and Michaelis say.

For the company’s global giving efforts, Michaelis says, it has collaborated with organizations such as the International Justice Mission, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, Partners International, Iris Ministries, and Compassion International, a couple of which have Spokane offices, and the Spokane-based International Assistance Program.

Michaelis says he’s motivated personally by “a discontent with the way the world is right now. A vehement discontent.”

He adds, “We’re very cognizant that doing work with extreme poverty is messy,” with tangible gains from the company’s charitable-giving investments sometimes elusive. Other times, though, it’s clear that the gains are immediate and gratifying.

The company invested less than $50,000 to develop the previously mentioned deep-bore well at a Compassion International child center in Tanzania, but that well now provides a reliable source of clean water to a sizable community that formerly depended on water being trucked in or had residents walking miles in search of clean water.

Michaelis and Edmonds both say they’re convinced that the company’s efforts to address hunger and water shortages have saved lives.