The Buck Foundation

The Buck Foundation of Rogers, Arkansas (EIN 71-0824287) is a small, family-run private foundation founded in 2001 by Jan G. Buck (President), Richard E. Buck (Vice President), and John Garner Buck (Secretary) — none of whom draw compensation, per its 990 filings. Its NTEE classification (B82, Financial Aid to Students) and its actual grant history confirm the foundation's center of gravity is individual college scholarships for graduates of Rogers-area high schools, supplemented by a small, stable roster of local Northwest Arkansas nonprofits and public-safety/community organizations. Of 203 grants totaling $817,000 in the foundation's on-file grantee data, the large majority by count and dollars went to named individual scholarship recipients (median grant $3,000, range $1,000-$15,000). This is not a foundation that runs an open, general-purpose grant competition for nonprofits: it has no published LOI process, no application form URL, and no stated deadline in its own filings for organizational grants. Instead, its nonprofit giving pattern — three separate grants each to Rogers Humane Society, First Friends Preschool, Rogers Public Education Foundation, Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Children's Advocacy Center, and First Christian Church — shows the foundation renewing support to the same local partners year over year rather than soliciting new applicants. For a nonprofit organization, the realistic path in is relationship-based: local visibility in Rogers/Bentonville/Pea Ridge, direct outreach to the Buck family (contact listed as c/o Richard E. Buck), and patience, since 202 of 203 recorded grants went to Arkansas recipients (one to Missouri). For individual students, the path is entirely different and far more accessible: a public online portal (buckforscholarships.com) with defined scholarship tiers, published eligibility criteria, and fixed annual deadlines. First-time applicants — student or organization — should not expect a single unified 'grant program.' The foundation runs what are effectively two separate operations: a structured, competitive scholarship program with public rules, and a quiet, invitation-pattern community-giving program with none.

On the financials filed under EIN 71-0824287, total assets have held in a narrow band — $5,411,155 (FY2011) down to $5,033,493 (FY2022), essentially flat-to-slightly-declining as payout has modestly outpaced investment income in most years. Annual total giving across the nine fiscal years on file ranged from $242,538 (FY2012) to $299,492 (FY2019), averaging roughly $270,000/year; grants paid (a slightly narrower figure than total giving) ranged $228,500-$284,000 over the same span. A third-party 990 aggregator (Instrumentl) cites a more recent grants figure of $350,500, which — if accurate — would represent a meaningful step up from the historical range and is consistent with the foundation's own scholarship site now advertising larger per-student awards than its historical grant records show. At the individual-grant level, the foundation's on-file grantee data (203 grants, $817,000 total, average $4,025/grant) skews toward small, recurring awards: the median grant is $3,000 and 68 grants sampled range $1,000-$15,000. Geographically, giving is almost exclusively Arkansas-concentrated — 202 of 203 recorded grants (99.5%) went to Arkansas recipients, with a single Missouri exception. By purpose, individual scholarships dominate grant count: of the top 50 grantees by cumulative amount, roughly two-thirds are named individual students carrying a "SCHOLARSHIP" purpose code, with multi-year totals of $6,000-$24,000 per student across two-to-three payments — consistent with a renewable, multi-year scholarship rather than a single check. The organizational share of giving is smaller in dollar terms but shows real repeat-funder loyalty: First Friends Preschool ($37,000/3 grants), Rogers Humane Society ($34,000/3 grants), Rogers Public Education Foundation ($22,000/3 grants), Northwest Arkansas Food Bank ($14,000/3 grants), and Children's Advocacy Center ($13,000/3 grants) all received identical grant counts (3) in the visible sample, strongly suggesting an annual renewal cadence with a fixed core group of community partners rather than open annual competition.

The Buck Foundation sits among a cluster of similarly small, education-focused private foundations with assets in the $4.8M-$4.9M range. None of the five closest asset-matched peers in this database have a publicized website, which typically signals invitation-only or founder-directed giving with no public application channel — a contrast with the Buck Foundation, which at least maintains a public scholarship portal (buckforscholarships.com) even though its organizational-grant side is similarly opaque.

All five peers carry the same "Education" NTEE categorization and near-identical asset bases (within about 1.7% of each other), suggesting this is a common tier of small, single-family education foundations rather than a coincidence. The Buck Foundation differentiates itself modestly by running a structured, publicly documented scholarship process with named award tiers and fixed deadlines — most peers in this asset class, including these five, show no public web presence at all, which for a grant seeker means the Buck Foundation is comparatively easier to research and apply to, at least on the student-scholarship side.

Verifiable recent activity specific to this Arkansas-based Buck Foundation is limited — this is a low-profile, family-directed foundation with no press office and no news coverage found in 2025-2026 searches. The clearest signal of current activity is the foundation's own scholarship portal, which is live and actively administering multiple scholarship tiers (Pride, Upperclassmen, Rogers Academy of Leadership and Innovation, Discretionary, and Legacy awards) with published deadlines running from October 2025 through February 2026 (Pride applications closed October 15; Upperclassmen window ran December 10-January 7; finalist notifications by January 21; interviews February 7) — indicating the program executed a full cycle for the current academic year. The Rogers Public Schools district confirms the Pride Scholarship as an active, currently offered award for Rogers High School and Rogers Heritage High School seniors, corroborating that the program has not lapsed. A third-party 990 aggregator (Instrumentl) shows a recent-year grants total of $350,500, above the foundation's FY2011-FY2022 historical range of $242,538-$299,492, which — if accurate — points to expanded giving capacity. No leadership changes were found; the same three Buck family officers (Jan G. Buck, President; Richard E. Buck, Vice President; John Garner Buck, Secretary) appear across all available filings with no compensation reported, consistent with continued closely-held family control. Grant seekers should not expect a press-release cadence from this funder — activity is best tracked via the foundation's own Facebook/Instagram (@buck_foundation) and its scholarship portal rather than news searches.

The Buck Foundation runs two functionally separate processes, and applicants should match their approach to the right one. For student scholarship applicants: apply directly through buckforscholarships.com — do not wait until the deadline window opens, since the foundation's own FAQ specifically warns that late-arriving transcripts (a common bottleneck around winter break) will render an application incomplete regardless of postmark date. Order high school or college transcripts before the winter break each year. The online application does not appear to auto-save reliably, so save progress after completing each section. Character limits on address, school-name, and major fields are tight enough that the foundation explicitly recommends using abbreviations. For Pride Scholarship applicants specifically, the bar is competitive and quantifiable: a 3.5+ GPA, ACT score in the 25-30 range, three school activities annually, at least one leadership position, 50+ community service hours, no disciplinary record, and (for the accompanying creative project) genuine effort rather than a last-minute submission. For Upperclassmen renewal applicants, the foundation weighs work history heavily — an application with no school-year or summer job, or one where financial aid already fully covers costs, is explicitly flagged as viewed unfavorably; a minimum 3.0 college GPA is required, with stated exceptions for demanding majors or documented extenuating circumstances like hospitalization. Following the foundation's Facebook and Instagram (@buck_foundation) is not optional-nice-to-have — it's where deadline reminders and process changes are actually communicated. For nonprofit and community organizations, there is no published grant portal, LOI form, or deadline — the realistic path is a direct, personal approach to the foundation (address on file: 15249 Dutchman's Drive, Rogers, AR 72756; also listed c/o Richard E. Buck) combined with visible, sustained work in the Rogers/Bentonville/Pea Ridge area. The foundation's demonstrated pattern of funding the same handful of local nonprofits three years running (Rogers Humane Society, First Friends Preschool, Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Children's Advocacy Center) suggests new organizational relationships take time to build and are unlikely to be won through a single unsolicited proposal.