Buckner Foundation

Important data-accuracy note first: this record (EIN 43-1933644, Prairie Village, KS mailing address) is a small Missouri family foundation, not the Dallas-based Buckner International ministry that owns buckner.org. Web research confirms the actual public-facing site for this exact EIN is buckner.foundation, and the entity was established in 2001 by the Trust of Charles M. Buckner, Jr. and his son William G. "Gordon" Buckner, both lifelong residents of Marshall, Missouri. Grant seekers should apply through buckner.foundation, not buckner.org, and should disregard the mission/program language ('Follow the example of Jesus...', foster care, senior living, international ministries) that appears in this record's DB fields — that language describes the unrelated Texas ministry and does not reflect this funder's actual giving.

With that corrected, the real Buckner Foundation is a hyper-local, place-based funder for Saline County, Missouri and its immediate surroundings (Lafayette and Pettis counties appear in the grantee list as well). It is not a national or thematic funder — mission alignment matters far less here than geographic footprint. All 73 traceable historical grants, worth $1,749,422 total, went to organizations physically operating in this small Central Missouri region.

The Foundation is advisor-directed: a small board of unpaid advisors (Thomas B. Hall, Charles D. Van Dyke, James Coe, Jane Huff) plus a compensated trustee (Joseph Kessinger, $14,900-$34,900/year across recent filings) hold 'absolute and sole discretionary authority.' There is no staff program officer, no LOI-to-full-proposal ladder, and no site-visit process described anywhere in the public record — it functions as a single-stage, quarterly-deadline application reviewed directly by the advisor group.

First-time applicants should treat this as a community foundation would treat a small local funder: apply directly for a specific, budgeted project (not a multi-year operating grant), keep the ask modest relative to the $23,965 average historical grant size, and expect a relationship that deepens through repeat, successful small asks rather than one large transformational grant. Several grantees (Tri-County Outreach, Fitzgibbon Hospital, Nelson Baptist Church, Community Food Pantry) show 3-5 separate awards over time, indicating the Foundation rewards demonstrated local track record and repeat, well-documented requests over one-off large proposals.

Across the 73 grants captured in this record, the Foundation has distributed $1,749,422 total, an average of $23,965 per grant, entirely to Missouri-based organizations (100% of recorded dollars, by state). The Foundation's own typical-grant-size data (based on a 15-grant sample) shows a median of $8,000, an average of $21,539, and a range of $1,950 to $50,000 — consistent with its published policy that awards are 'generally less than $50,000.'

The largest cumulative recipients are Tri-County Outreach and Fitzgibbon Hospital, each receiving $250,000 across five separate grants — meaning no single check appears to exceed roughly $50,000-$75,000 even for the most-favored repeat grantees. Mid-tier recipients include Sweet Springs Restoration Foundation ($100,000/3 grants), Saline County Fair Association and Saline County Career Center ($100,000/2 grants each), Nelson Baptist Church ($100,000/4 grants), and Health Care Coalition of Lafayette County ($100,000/2 grants, plus a related $50,000 single grant under a variant name). The tail of the list shows awards as small as $1,950 (Friends of Blackwater) and $2,265 (River Relief Inc), confirming the Foundation funds small, hyper-local requests as readily as larger ones.

By purpose, the overwhelming majority of grant-purpose text reads 'to provide funds for organization's operations' — despite the Foundation's stated preference for project-specific requests over general operating support, actual disbursement history skews heavily toward unrestricted operating gifts to trusted local nonprofits, churches, museums, and civic groups. A small number of grants cite named programs (Missouri Valley College's nursing program, $46,255; a church-run 'Baby Grace' diaper program, $5,000 and $35,000 combined across two grantees), suggesting program-specific proposals are funded but are the exception rather than the rule.

On giving trends: total giving was $135,844 in FY2011, dipped to $77,707 in FY2013, recovered to $362,955 by FY2019, then rose further to a peak of $430,858 in FY2021 before settling to $408,171 in FY2022 (the most recent year in this record). Total assets have held in the $4.87M-$5.42M range since a $3.21 million contribution landed in FY2018, roughly doubling the corpus from its $2.2M-$2.3M level in 2011-2014.

The Foundation sits in a cluster of similarly-sized private foundations (all around $5.13M in total assets) that IRS/NTEE classification groups under 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking.' None of these peer records include published annual giving, focus-area, or application-process detail in this dataset, so the comparison below is necessarily asset-only; treat the peer columns as directional, not confirmed.

What distinguishes the Buckner Foundation from this peer set is transparency and access: it is one of the few in this asset tier with a public website, a stated application process, published deadlines, and a documented required-materials checklist — most small family foundations at this size operate invitation-only with no public intake at all. For a Missouri nonprofit, that makes it meaningfully more approachable than a same-size peer in another state, even though the giving budget (~$350K-$430K/year) is modest relative to the $5M asset base.

No foundation-specific press coverage, leadership changes, or new-program announcements for 2025-2026 turned up in web research — consistent with an all-volunteer-advisor, no-staff family foundation that does not issue press releases. The most concrete 2025-2026 signal is operational: the Foundation's website currently lists four 2026 application deadlines (February 26, May 31, August 30, November 29), confirming the quarterly-cycle process remains active and unchanged.

The most recent financial detail available in this record is FY2022 (total giving $408,171, total assets $4,989,050, 73 cumulative recorded grants across the Foundation's history since 2001). Compensation for the sole paid trustee, Joseph Kessinger, has fluctuated across recent filings ($14,900 in the earliest year shown, $34,900 in a later year, $17,900 most recently) — normal year-to-year variation for a part-time trustee role at a foundation this size, not indicative of a governance change.

A related entity worth noting for context: the Margaret G. Buckner Scholarship Trust (EIN 43-1735027), also based in Marshall, Missouri, appears to be a sibling vehicle from the same family with a distinct focus on education and healthcare scholarships. Applicants seeking scholarship or student-aid funding specifically — rather than general nonprofit/program grants — should investigate that trust separately, as it is a different legal entity with its own filings and process.

Given the lack of new public announcements, applicants should assume continuity: same advisor board, same $50,000 practical ceiling, same Saline County/Central Missouri geographic restriction, and the same quarterly cycle that has run since 2001.

Apply at buckner.foundation/apply-for-funding — not buckner.org, which is an unrelated national ministry despite the shared surname. This confusion is the single biggest risk of a wasted application for organizations discovering this funder through a web search.

Timing: the Foundation reviews on a strict quarterly cycle (deadlines February 26, May 31, August 30, November 29 in 2026) and typically responds within about 60 days of each deadline. Because there is no formal rejection notice, silence past the 60-day mark should be read as a decline for that cycle — reapply the following quarter with any requested adjustments rather than waiting for a letter that likely will not come.

What they look for: a specific, budgeted project with clear objectives, an implementation plan, defined success metrics, and a follow-up/reporting timeline — the application explicitly asks for all of these. Pair that with full financial transparency: a current 12-month profit & loss statement, a balance sheet, and your IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter are all required; Missouri state sales-tax exemption alone is explicitly not sufficient proof of tax-exempt status.

Common mistakes to avoid: (1) submitting a pure general-operating request — the Foundation states these are 'considered but not preferred,' so frame even core-mission support as a named project or initiative with measurable outcomes; (2) omitting the financial statements or determination letter, which appear to be treated as gating requirements; (3) applying from outside Saline County or the immediate Central Missouri area (Lafayette, Pettis counties) — the historical grant list shows zero exceptions to this geographic footprint; (4) asking for amounts well above the practical $50,000 ceiling, which the data shows is rarely if ever exceeded even for the most-funded repeat grantees.

Relationship-building: the grantee data shows the Foundation rewards continuity — several organizations (Tri-County Outreach, Fitzgibbon Hospital, Nelson Baptist Church, Community Food Pantry, Saline Animal League Community) have each received three to five separate grants over time. A modest first ask that is well-documented and well-reported back is likely to open the door to repeat funding more reliably than one large ask.