2023-06-30T13:53:16-07:00 2022-12-31 990 2022-01-01 455445890 FARM COMMONS FARM 2183024030 302 W Austin St Duluth MN 55803 Rachel Armstrong Executive Director 2183024030 2023-06-30 1 1 11 0 AAL2 2022 2023-04-26 12:10:37Z Rachel Armstrong 302 W Austin St Duluth MN 55803 504775 0 X www.farmcommons.org X 2012 WI Farm Commons' mission is to provide the legal resources sustainable farmers need to be the stable, resilient foundation of a community-based food system. Farm Commons empowers agricultural communities to resolve their own legal vulnerabilities, within an ecosystem of support. 6 6 6 5 0 0 409165 406772 29290 98003 54 0 0 0 438509 504775 0 0 0 0 235156 352651 0 0 53636 202459 118328 437615 470979 894 33796 264342 287917 13507 3285 250835 284632 Farm Commons' mission is to provide the legal resources that sustainable farmers need to become the stable, resilient foundation of a community-based food system. Farm Commons empowers agricultural communities (including farmers, ranchers, and agriculture support persons) to identify and resolve legal vulnerabilities within an ecosystem of support. An ecosystem of support includes accountants, attorneys, and insurance agents who assist agricultural business owners in resolving risk. To carry out our mission, we create educational resources including online workshops. We also develop the leadership of agricultural community members (farmers and their supporters) to support legal resiliency, locally. 0 0 232863 0 446514 Farmer Education: In 2022 we hosted about 130 farmers through our Discovering Resilience workshop, which saw 90% of attendees adopt at least one of the 10 best practices of legal resilience within 3 months of the workshop. In addition, 80% of attendees are still working towards implementing 4 or more best practices 3 months after the workshop. We launched a new Advanced Farm Employment Law workshop. We wrote and distributed 7 additional guides including in-depth material on auto insurance and property insurance for farm businesses. We delivered 22 webinars to farmers nationwide on essential farm law subjects. We launched a very succesful first year of our Farmer Fellowship (now called the Collaborative Learning Fellowship) where we support farmers in developing their stories of success in managing business law issues on their farm. We developed a framework to scale the Fellowship nationwide, empowering our Alumni to lead farm law circles of support in their own community. In addition, we addressed 60 individual questions and issues over our online Q&A platform, creating a community-wide discussion on farm law issues that affect farmers the most including forming LLCs, writing leases, and managing employment law obligations. 35190 0 40107 Non-Farmer Education: In 2022, Farm Commons developed its service to Extension Educators, nonprofit employees, and farm support persons nationwide to help farmers recognize and address legal vulnerabilities before a problem occurs. We delivered our comprehensive online workshop, Guiding Resilience, to 50 professionals nationwide. We supported 128 non-farming professionals with customized access to our resources and individualized webinars to their agricultural communities. Our data show that for every one non-farming agriculture professional we reach, that person provides our information to 22 more farmers in their local community, significantly magnifying our ability to achieve our mission. Considering the incredible impact and further potential of these partners to help us reach each farmer in America, we designed a new Legal Ecosystem Fellowship program that trains these partners to be able to lead farm law workshops in their own communities- a program that will launch in 2023. 0 0 2679 Research: Farm Commons provides essential services in doing complex legal research and in studying the impact and ramifications of legal realities on diverse farm communities. In 2022, this program was stepped back to allow staff to focus on our new Fellowship programs in the Farmer and NonFarmer Education programs, which are key to efficient scalability nationwide. We secured revenue late in the fiscal year for this program and did not yet incur the expenses to develop proposals and identify research needs for future support. 0 0 0 268053 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 X Rachel Armstrong 2183024030 302 W Austin St Duluth MN 55803 Rachel Armstrong Ex officio and Non-Voting Director 40 0 X X 70501 0 0 Aaron Sandvig Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Andrew Larson Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Tom Buller Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 Joy Kirkpatrick Treasurer 1 0 X X 0 0 0 Kate Graham President 1 0 X X 0 0 0 Beth Dooley Director 1 1 X 0 0 0 70501 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 48482 0 0 335020 23270 396 406772 Curriculum and Resource Development Contracts 611519 98003 98003 0 0 0 0 0 0 98003 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 504775 98003 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 61990 24796 24796 12398 0 247963 161176 61991 24796 5826 3496 1631 699 11400 6840 3192 1368 25472 15283 7132 3057 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19361 516 18742 103 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1641 75 674 892 751 687 64 4174 1084 2586 504 25933 12942 6443 6548 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 873 312 11 550 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16600 0 16600 0 0 0 0 0 Direct Program Expenses 39015 35441 1762 1812 Bank and Business Fees 1404 1279 90 35 Other Business Expenses and bad debt 3734 926 2808 0 Staff Training and Development 4842 3200 832 810 470979 268053 149290 53636 61973 63642 2288 0 0 0 126765 164422 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26283 -9683 -26283 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 82999 86136 264342 287917 11827 1423 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1680 1862 13507 3285 X 249941 250835 0 0 894 33797 250835 284632 264342 287917 X 33796 0 0 0 0 1 X 1 0 0 0 X 199328 214516 382812 409165 406773 1612594 199328 214516 382812 409165 406773 1612594 1612594 866 666 54 0 1586 1614180 98003 0.99902 0.99895 X RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 26283 -26283 -26283 Our website 86136 86136 1862 1862 Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 11b All board members receive a final draft copy of the complete Form 990 return plus the spreadsheets and reports used to prepare the return. Members are given 7 days to review and comment on or request clarification on the tax return. Comments and questions are addressed within that 7 days, or the submission time is extended to allow all comments and questions to be fully addressed. When all is resolved, the return is submitted. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12c At each new member orientation and annually in the December annual meeting, the conflicts of interest policy is distributed and members have the opportunity to submit documentation of any potential or actual conflicts of interest, if necessary. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 15 Compensation for every non-Executive Director position is determined according to the Compensation and Benefits policy, which is prepared and maintained by the Executive Director, and which requires an analysis of comparable positions in the organization's home state within a similar profession and at a similar scale. Compensation for the Executive Director position is determined according to the Compensation policy prepared and maintained by the Board of Directors, and which requires the organization strive to provide compensation at the level of comparable positions in the organization's home state within a similar profession and at a similar scale. A market comparison is preformed not more than every 2 years. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19 Yes, these documents were available to the public. Documents required to be available for public inspection (governing documents, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements) are available by calling the organization at the number listed at our website or emailing our central email address info at farmcommons dot org. Form 990, Part XI, Line 9 Accumulated rounding differences in transitioning to whole numbers only. Our accounting firm failed to file for the automatic extension, which we were not made aware of, despite them filing it for three years prior.