Turnbull Foundation Trust

Turnbull Foundation Trust is a small, hyperlocal private foundation trust in Emporia, Kansas, established from the estate of J. Michael "Mike" Turnbull, a longtime Emporia businessman (Roberts-Blue-Barnett Funeral Home) and Emporia State University baseball booster. It is trustee-administered by Steve Bell of ESB Financial (801 Merchant St, PO Box 807, Emporia, KS 66801; 620-342-3454) with no program staff, no formal RFP, and no online application portal — this is a personal-relationship funder, not an institutional one, and the foundation's own IRS filing simply states "applications are accepted at any time."

The grant history bears this out. Of $352,515 in cumulative recorded grants across 37 awards, $232,815 (66%) — 16 separate grants — went to a single grantee, Esu Foundation Inc (Emporia State University's foundation), almost entirely earmarked for baseball: the "Mike Turnbull Baseball Scholarship," "Baseball Salary Enhancement Fund," and Trusler Sports Complex facility improvements. That relationship culminated in a $650,000 lead gift (announced September 2024) toward a $1.3 million turf renovation and the naming of "Turnbull Field," dedicated April 12, 2025. The remaining giving is almost entirely hyperlocal and modest: Eskridge Park Foundation ($26,000/4 grants), Emporia Main Street ($25,000 for its Upper Story program), Olpe Lions Club park improvements ($20,000), Emporia Senior Center ($17,500), and a cluster of $1,000-$5,000 grants to Emporia-area animal shelters and rescue groups. 36 of 37 recorded grants stayed in Kansas; one reached Missouri.

For applicants: this is not a fit for national, regional, or even statewide organizations outside the Emporia/Lyon County footprint. There is no LOI-to-full-proposal ladder, no documented site-visit protocol, and no publicized board cycle — requests go directly and informally to the trustee. The foundation rewards causes with a direct, personal tie to Mike Turnbull's own interests (ESU athletics, downtown Emporia small business, animal welfare, senior services) or that route through an intermediary it already trusts, notably Emporia Main Street, which now administers two Turnbull-branded sub-programs (the Facade Grant and the Upper Story Incentive). Organizations without an Emporia/Lyon County presence or connection should not expect a response; those with one should lead with a plainspoken, specific, modestly-scoped ask.

Turnbull Foundation Trust's assets grew from $845,950 at inception (FY2019) to $3,574,172 by FY2023 — a 4.2x increase — driven substantially by a $2,366,702 contribution received in FY2022 (assets jumped from $1,293,514 to $3,652,819 that year), consistent with a second tranche of funding from Turnbull's estate. Annual giving scaled accordingly: total_giving was just $41 in the 2019 founding year, then $45,576 (2020), $52,638 (2021), $65,094 (2022), and $215,170 (2023, with $185,563 actually paid out as grants that year); web-sourced 990 aggregators (Instrumentl/Grantmakers.io) put 2024 grants at approximately $193,063 — roughly a 60x increase in annual grantmaking over five years, though still modest in absolute dollars.

Grant size is sharply bimodal. Across 37 cumulative grants totaling $352,515 in the platform's grantee-level data, the average is $9,527 — but that figure masks two distinct tiers. The Esu Foundation Inc (ESU athletics) relationship accounts for 16 grants averaging $14,551 each ($232,815 total, 66% of all recorded dollars), separate from the $650,000 single 2024 turf-renovation gift reported in press but not yet reflected in the grantee-level 990 data. Every other recipient falls into a small-grant tier of $1,000-$26,000, with most awards at $1,000-$5,000 (repeat gifts to animal shelters, one-time community grants). Public 990 aggregators describe the foundation's typical award range as $1,000-$130,000.

By program area (cumulative dollars): ESU athletics/scholarship giving is dominant at roughly 66% ($232,815). Downtown/community revitalization — Eskridge Park Foundation ($26,000), Emporia Main Street ($25,000), Olpe Lions Club park fund ($20,000) — totals about $71,000, or 20%. Animal welfare (three Emporia-area shelter/rescue groups, all funded for "care of dogs") totals roughly $26,000, or 7%. Human/social services (Emporia Senior Center, Hetlinger Developmental Services) totals about $20,000, or 6%. Geographically, giving is almost entirely confined to Kansas (36 of 37 grants, concentrated in Emporia and Lyon County), with a single grant reaching Missouri.

Turnbull Foundation Trust sits at the very small end of the private-foundation spectrum, and public 990 aggregators carry little disclosed financial detail for comparably small rural Kansas funders, so this comparison leans on the one confirmed local peer (Emporia Community Foundation) plus general IRS payout-rule benchmarks for foundations of similar asset size, shown for context rather than as named competitors.

At roughly $3.5M in assets, Turnbull's actual payout (~$193K-$215K in its two most recent reported years) already runs above the bare 5% IRS minimum distribution floor for a foundation its size, and its 2022-2023 giving trajectory shows it is still ramping toward a stable annual level following its 2022 capitalization event. Unlike the Emporia Community Foundation, which operates on published cycles and pools multiple donor funds across broad community causes, Turnbull is a single-donor legacy trust whose giving is concentrated in causes tied directly to Mike Turnbull's own life — ESU baseball chief among them — making it far less diversified but also far more predictable for applicants who share that specific alignment.

The foundation's most visible recent activity centers on Emporia State University athletics: a $650,000 lead gift (announced September 2024) funded new turf as part of a $1.3 million Trusler Sports Complex renovation, resulting in the field being renamed "Turnbull Field"; a formal on-field dedication ceremony followed on April 12, 2025, ahead of ESU's home game against Washburn, honoring the late J. Michael "Mike" Turnbull.

Separately, the foundation has built out standing downtown-Emporia giving programs administered through Emporia Main Street rather than directly. The Upper Story Incentive Program (matching support for residential development above downtown storefronts) launched in November 2023. The Turnbull Facade Grant Program — offering up to $10,000 per project on a dollar-for-dollar match basis — ran its first competitive round in early 2025: from 14 applicants, Toso Family Eyecare and the Resource Center for Independent Living (RCIL) were announced as the inaugural winners on March 4, 2025, each receiving $5,000 in reimbursable funds, with completion required by early March 2026. A subsequent facade grant application round is due November 30, 2025, per Emporia Main Street's published funding-opportunities page.

No leadership changes are documented; ESB Financial's Steve Bell continues as trustee, and no new focus areas beyond the existing ESU athletics, downtown revitalization, animal welfare, and senior-services pattern have surfaced in 2025-2026 reporting. The overall picture is a foundation still operationalizing its post-2022 capitalization into repeatable, publicized local programs rather than shifting priorities.

This is a relationship-driven, staff-free funder, so the mechanics of applying matter more than the polish of a proposal. Send inquiries directly to trustee Steve Bell at ESB Financial (801 Merchant St / PO Box 807, Emporia, KS 66801; 620-342-3454) — there is no online portal, no published RFP, and no LOI-then-full-proposal sequence to follow. The foundation states applications are accepted "at any time," so there is no annual deadline to plan around for a direct request, though the Emporia Main Street-administered Turnbull programs do carry hard dates (the Facade Grant's most recent round closed November 30, 2025).

What the foundation looks for is a legible, specific tie to the Emporia/Lyon County community Mike Turnbull spent his life in — ESU athletics and scholarships, downtown small-business revitalization, animal welfare, and senior/human services are its four demonstrated lanes. A generic statewide or national appeal with no Emporia presence is very unlikely to get traction; the data shows 36 of 37 recorded grants stayed inside Kansas, almost all within Lyon County.

The most common mistake would be over-engineering the ask: with no program staff to review lengthy documents, a concise, plainspoken letter stating the organization, the specific use of funds, and a modest, defensible dollar figure ($1,000-$25,000 fits the vast majority of past grants) is more appropriate than a formal multi-page proposal. Signature gifts in the six figures (the $650,000 ESU turf gift) only follow years of an established relationship — new applicants should not open with an ask at that scale.

For downtown Emporia building or storefront projects specifically, route through Emporia Main Street's Facade Grant or Upper Story Incentive programs rather than approaching the trust directly — Main Street handles review, required matching funds, and design-guideline compliance, and has already built a repeatable annual cycle around Turnbull's name. For everything else — animal welfare, senior services, parks, general operating support — a direct, brief letter to the trustee mirroring past awarded purposes ("for general operations," "for care of dogs," "park improvement fund") is the most defensible approach.