Bunker Hill Haven Trust

Bunker Hill Haven Trust is not a re-granting foundation in the conventional sense, and grant seekers should recalibrate expectations before investing time here. It is a single-site operating foundation: it exists to run its own program — an 18-bed, non-secured group home for boys ages 12-18 in Butler County, Ohio — rather than to fund outside 501(c)(3)s. The Trust's own IRS Form 990-PF lists its application process as 'none,' and the underlying data confirms this is not an oversight: grants_paid was $0 in every filed year from 2011 through 2022, and the top-grantees list is empty because there is no grantee history to report. Every dollar the organization spends (a rising $862,464 in charitable disbursements in the most recent FY2025 filing) goes to housing, feeding, staffing, and providing treatment services for the boys living on its 130-acre Hamilton campus — not to outside applicants. The Trust was established in 1973 through an endowment from Dr. and Mrs. Walter Pater of Hamilton, and it still runs on dividends from that Pater Estate endowment plus a $99.00/day per-diem charged to placing agencies (Butler County Juvenile Court and County Children Services). Leadership is thin and stable: Executive Director Lori Turner (compensation $84,178 in the most recent DB-reported year) and a small unpaid trustee board (Greg Hull, Jennifer Muench-Mcelfresh, Dennis Deahl, Parker Frey, Kelly Heile). For organizations that genuinely align — for example, another Butler County youth-services nonprofit — the productive relationship to pursue is not a grant application but a referral, placement, or in-kind partnership, initiated through the general contact email on bunkerhillhaven.org. Nonprofits seeking cash grants for youth-serving programs should treat this profile as informational rather than as a live funding prospect and redirect fundraising energy toward regional funders with documented external grantmaking, such as the Hamilton Community Foundation.

The financial pattern here is fundamentally different from a typical grantmaking foundation: there are no grants to break out by program area, geography, or size because none have been paid to outside organizations in any year of available data (2011-2022) or in the most recent FY2025 990-PF summary. Total assets have grown steadily from $5,221,534 (FY2011) to $6,605,678 (FY2022) to $7,982,142 in the latest filing — a roughly 53% increase over the period, driven almost entirely by investment performance rather than new contributions. Net investment income has ranged from $123,465 to $321,093 per year, while new contributions received have been minimal and volatile: $610 (2022), $26,261 (2021), $2,820 (2020), and a low of $0 in 2015, with two outlier years — $271,890 (2012) and $161,276 (2011) — likely reflecting estate-related transfers. In the most recent filing, contributions account for only 0.3% of the Trust's $1,200,178 in total revenue; dividends contribute 16.3% and 'other income' (largely per-diem placement fees) makes up 74.5%. 'Total giving,' which rose from $492,315 (2011) to $830,145 (2022) and reached $862,464 in charitable disbursements by FY2025 (86.2% of $1,000,238 in total expenses), is entirely internal program expense — the cost of operating the group home — not third-party grants. Officer/trustee compensation has climbed from $83,012 (2011) to $126,477 (2022), running 12-14% of total giving in most years. In short: no median grant size, no grant range, and no geographic or programmatic distribution to report, because the Trust functions as a direct-service provider funded by its own endowment, not as a pass-through grantmaker.

Because Bunker Hill Haven Trust does not make external grants, the most useful peer set is other small, single-purpose youth-residential operating nonprofits rather than traditional grantmaking foundations — and the comparison reinforces that this whole category rarely funds outside organizations.

All four organizations are direct-service operators funded by per-diem placement fees, program revenue, or (in Bunker Hill's case) an endowment — none maintain an open external grants program. Bunker Hill Haven Trust sits in the middle of this peer group by assets but is the smallest by annual throughput, reflecting its single-site, single-program structure and its unusual reliance on 50+ year-old estate dividends rather than fee revenue alone.

No foundation-specific news, leadership changes, or program announcements for 2025-2026 turned up in web search — searches for 'Bunker Hill Haven Trust' news returned only unrelated results for an unaffiliated mining company (Bunker Hill Mining Corp.) that happens to share the 'Bunker Hill' name. This is consistent with the organization's profile: a small, single-site group home with no press office and no public grants program to generate funder-community coverage. The most recent verifiable activity is administrative rather than programmatic — its FY2025 Form 990-PF (filed with the IRS and reflected in ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer) shows total revenue of $1,200,178, total assets of $7,982,142, and $862,464 in charitable disbursements (86.2% of expenses), alongside officer compensation of $125,226 (12.5%). Historically, the organization's only notable 'event' on record is its 1973 founding via the Pater Estate endowment left by Dr. and Mrs. Walter Pater of Hamilton, Ohio — a fact repeated across its own website and third-party directories (CauseIQ, GuideStar) but with no further institutional history publicly documented. The DB people list shows some Executive Director turnover in recent years (Ryan Turrieta and Kelly Hansel appear at partial-year compensation levels below current ED Lori Turner's $84,178), suggesting a leadership transition took place at some point, though no dated announcement of it could be confirmed via web search.

The single most important tip for any grant seeker is to stop treating this as a grant prospect: Bunker Hill Haven Trust's own IRS filing lists 'none' for its application process, and it has paid $0 in external grants across every year of filed data (2011-2022) plus the latest FY2025 return. There is no LOI, no proposal cycle, no board meeting calendar to time a submission around, and no program officer to build a relationship with — because the organization does not have a grants function. If your work genuinely overlaps with Bunker Hill Haven's mission (housing and treatment for underprivileged, orphaned, or at-risk boys ages 12-18 from Butler County, Ohio), the productive move is a partnership or referral conversation, not a funding request: reach out via the general contact form at bunkerhillhaven.org/contact.php or email turnerandlori@gmail.com, and frame the ask around collaboration (shared programming, mentoring, in-kind donations, volunteer engagement) rather than a check. Placing agencies (Butler County Juvenile Court, County Children Services, or private placement sources) should approach this as a fee-for-service relationship at the Trust's published $99.00/day per-diem rate, not a grant application. A common mistake grant seekers will make is finding this Trust on GuideStar, Charity Navigator, or Candid's Foundation Directory — all of which list it as a Form 990-PF filer — and assuming that filing status implies an open grants program; it does not. For nonprofits that specifically need funding (not partnership) for youth-serving work in Butler or Hamilton County, redirect effort toward funders with a documented external grants history, such as the Hamilton Community Foundation, rather than pursuing Bunker Hill Haven Trust.