Kansas Farm Bureau Legal Foundation

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
481243473
IRS 990 coverage
2020–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Manhattan, KS, USA
Phone
7855876160
Rating
74
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Private Grantmaking Foundations

Reported finances

Revenue
$181,122
Expenses
$58,458
Assets
$1,321,938
Liabilities
$0

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

21 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • JOSEPH NEWLAND (PRESIDENT/DI)

Highest reported compensation

  • TERRY HOLDREN (SECRETARY): $484,538 total reported compensation
  • JOSEPH NEWLAND (PRESIDENT/DI): $361,662 total reported compensation
  • JOEL LEFTWICH (RELATED ORG): $283,612 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

To strengthen agriculture and the lives of kansans by providing legal research, advocacy, and education.

What it reported doing in 2025

America needs an agricultural industry that supports healthy rural communities, protects the environment, and promotes a safe, diverse, and stable food supply. A healthy family farm-based system of agriculture is required to achieve these goals. Targeted, top-notch legal information and advocacy are indispensable in the struggle to defend family-based agriculture and secure social and economic justice for farmers. To provide this service the Kansas farm bureau legal foundation (legal foundation) used more than 20 volunteers in 2025. The legal foundation rural practice grant program helps place attorneys in rural Kansas by awarding up to 3 grants to new law graduates that pass the bar and begin their practice of law in a rural Kansas community. Thirteen grant recipients have been identified since the beginning of this program. The legal foundation is a proud sponsor of efforts to provide continuing legal education to attorneys serving agricultural clients, including the annual aala symposium, and a joint symposium with the Kansas bar association. This aala symposium gathers the best and brightest agricultural law attorneys from around the u.s., and provides lectures and open formats for them to learn from one other. The legal foundation provides grants to county farm bureau associations to host legal education seminars. In 2025 three grants were awarded for seminars hosted on estate planning, rails to trails, and electric transmission. Through legal education seminars, the legal foundation reached over 1,000 individuals in 2025.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
Distribution model
Grant intermediary. The nonprofit sent 83% of its reported program spending out as grants.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered and some filed totals do not add up.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 64
  • Transparency & Controls: 71
  • Accountability: 91
  • Sustainability: 82
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 60.4%; rating input score 60
  • Program expense ratio: 93.1%; rating input score 93
  • Fundraising efficiency: Limited

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 90%; rating input score 90; 10th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Pass
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 97.6%; rating input score 98; 59th percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 7 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 78
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 67.7%; rating input score 95; 95th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 22.61; rating input score 96; 96th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 809.8%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 21% per year; rating input score 100; 84th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 8.8% per year; rating input score 100; 65th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 8.3% per year; rating input score 100; 57th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 60.4% of revenue deployed · 93.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 7 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $54K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $485K · 21 people listed · 1 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Consistency: 16 of 17 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, and executive pay
  • Filing history: 6 filing years from 2020 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Related organizations: 4 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Independent financial-statement audit not reported.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 0/100.