Lumpkin Family Foundation

Lumpkin Family Foundation

Created in 1953 from the estate of Besse A. Lumpkin, the Lumpkin Family Foundation anchors its identity in the legacy of Consolidated Communications, the Illinois-based telecommunications company that generated the family wealth. Today, President Ila Duncan represents the third generation of Lumpkin stewardship from the foundation's headquarters in downtown Mattoon. Former Trustee Richard A. Lumpkin, who chairs Consolidated Communications, helped bridge the operating business and the philanthropic vehicle for decades, while Secretary and Treasurer Steven L. Grissom, CEO of SKL Investment Group, manages the administrative core. The foundation splits its activity into two interdependent streams. Its grantmaking arm funds sustainable food systems and mental health programs, often through collaborations within the Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders network, where the foundation has maintained membership for over 20 years. On the investment side, the endowment pursues exposure across venture, growth, and expansion stage deals, with a portfolio that includes a mix of agribusiness holdings and private equity positions. The foundation engages across multiple stages — from seed and start-up to late-stage commitments — with a geographic concentration in the United States. With an estimated endowment of roughly $49 million and a long-standing presence in the Council on Foundations and the National Center for Family Philanthropy, the foundation operates with a lean governance structure. Grissom and Duncan form the key executive layer, supported by a board that reflects multi-generational family involvement. The foundation's physical footprint is small — a single office in Mattoon — but its institutional affiliations, including the Illinois-based Forefront network, extend its operational reach. The foundation's structural differentiator is its dual mandate as both an active investment vehicle and a place-based grantmaker. Unlike pure endowment models that outsource programmatic work, the Lumpkin Family Foundation retains direct control over both capital deployment and community programming. That internal integration — with the same family office leadership overseeing market-rate investments in private equity and program-related grants in regenerative agriculture — creates a continuity between how the money is made and where it is spent that few foundations of its size maintain.