2026-06-02T15:12:53-07:00 2025-12-31 990 2025-01-01 455445890 FARM COMMONS FARM 2183024030 302 W Austin St Duluth MN 55803 Rachel Armstrong Executive Director 2183024030 2026-05-07 2025 2025-03-06 01:10:19Z Rachel Armstrong 302 W Austin St Duluth MN 55803 812313 0 X www.farmcommons.org X 2012 WI Farm Commons empowers agricultural communities to resolve their own legal vulnerabilities, within an ecosystem of support. We achieve our mission through development of high-quality, accessible legal education resources that help producers identify issues, make crucial decisions, and take action to achieve legal resilience. Our focus addresses both proactive, longstanding business resilience and reacts to emerging threats and opportunities. Farmers themselves are the best source for creative solutions to their own challenges. We develop community leaders who guide peers and foster conversations about legal resilience. In-depth research into nuanced legal issues and delivering legal services also play a role in creating accurate, plain language resources that empower small business owners to develop their resilience. Our work reaches audiences that have historically lacked access to business legal services whether by gender, race, geography and/or ability to pay. 7 7 6 5 0 0 482096 713359 130786 95223 1489 3731 0 0 614371 812313 0 0 0 0 342023 301251 0 0 13099 197882 181594 539905 482845 74466 329468 377094 689330 21638 4406 355456 684924 X 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 in their region. 0 0 311222 0 370742 Direct Legal Education: We reached 15,000 agricultural community members with quality educational resources on farm law issues. We debuted new capacity to address emerging threats and legal uncertainty across the farm law landscape. Across 20 unique webinars, we reached 4100 community members with rapid response information. These webinars addressed terminated and frozen USDA contracts, using the NAD appeals process, Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues, the H-2A visa program changes, and new USDA general terms and conditions. These webinars alone reached 4200 farmers and their supporters. With partners nationwide, we developed 9 new guides and template documents to accompany our webinar outreach. These guides were downloaded over 1000 times, the majority for further distribution in local communities. We didn't just focus on emerging threats- we continued our work on chronic farm law matters with 16 new guides addressing purchasing land as a group of unrelated persons, developing botanical products, managing employee pay, providing employee benefits, and avoiding discrimination on the basis of ability. We continued partnerships with organizations and Extension offices by providing 29 webinars for these audiences on the most commonly encountered farm law issues. We deepened our collaborative relationships by with partners nationwide, and participated in weekly and monthly coordination sessions extending beyond the 2025 calendar year. 2025 was a year of tremendous instability for the agricultural community. Farm Commons rose to the occasion in providing dynamic, fast, responsive education that explained the knowns and unknowns in readily accessible language. This experience has prepared the organization to step into a new role as a rapid response provider of legal information, which the community greatly needs. 42751 0 97586 Non-Farmer Education: We trained 15 new farm support professionals in the basics of farm law through our Guiding Resilience program. This 5-week program orients supporters to the basic issues, empowering them to help farmers without going beyond the boundaries of professional responsibility. We deepened our investment in the leadership of 12 Legal Ecosystem Fellows. Fellows are trained across a 6 week program to deliver farm law education programming in their own communities and we provided continuing support and review of presentations. Third, we developed 3 new guides specifically to help farm supporters steer farmers through the processes of developing contracts like leases and governance documents. Lastly, we began a project to better empower educators that reach English Langauge Learners through low/no literacy required presentations. 3277 0 6745 Research and Legal Services: We provided legal services to 3 clients in 2025 in matters that helped grow our expertise and develop useful educational materials for the entire agricultural community. 0 0 0 357250 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 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 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 7 7 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 X X 72384 0 0 Aaron Sandvig Director 1 X 0 0 0 Andrew Larson Director 1 X 0 0 0 Tom Buller President 1 0 X X 0 0 0 Joy Kirkpatrick Secretary 1 0 X X 0 0 0 Kate Graham Treasurer 1 0 X X 0 0 0 Nathan Aaberg Director 1 X 0 0 0 Kate Giessel Director 1 0 X 0 0 0 72384 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 360459 352900 0 713359 Paywalled resource access 611430 38380 38380 0 0 Legal resource and curriculum development 611430 48597 48597 0 0 Legal Services 541199 6309 6309 0 0 1937 1937 0 0 95223 3731 3731 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 0 0 0 0 812313 98954 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 262824 220387 37399 5038 5322 4562 609 151 11933 9523 2410 0 21172 17980 2794 398 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 24159 0 24159 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1125 0 0 1125 1541 191 1350 0 12313 4863 6620 830 0 0 0 0 3686 0 3686 0 14251 5896 3645 4710 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19733 0 19733 0 795 200 595 0 103991 93648 9496 847 482845 357250 112496 13099 42916 187211 101489 255220 190554 211517 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9285 9765 0 -25617 32850 25617 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 377094 689330 8154 4406 0 0 11775 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1709 21638 4406 X 355456 423674 0 261250 355456 684924 377094 689330 329468 0 0 0 0 0 X 1 X 0 0 0 X 409165 406773 441723 474512 713359 2445532 409165 406773 441723 474512 713359 2445532 2445532 54 0 0 0 0 54 0 0 0 2445586 44689 0.99998 0.99966 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 -25617 25617 25617 Form 990, Part I, Line 1 to achieve legal resilience. Our focus addresses both proactive, longstanding business resilience and reacts to emerging threats and opportunities. Farmers themselves are the best source for creative solutions to their own challenges. We develop community leaders who guide peers and foster conversations about legal resilience. In-depth research into nuanced legal issues and delivering legal services also play a role in creating accurate, plain language resources that empower small business owners to develop their resilience. Our work reaches audiences that have historically lacked access to business legal services whether by gender, race, geography and/or ability to pay. Form 990, Part III (Cont. 1) 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 in their region. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 11b All board members receive a final copy of the draft Form 990 tax return. Members have at least one week to review the material, ask questions, and/or recommend edits to the return. Any received questions or suggestions are reviewed and resolved accordingly. The tax return is submitted when all issues are resolved. Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12c At each new director orientation and annually at the December meeting, the conflicts of interest policy is distributed and directors have the opportunity to submit documentation of any potential or actual conflicts of interest, as 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 and at a similar scale. Compensation for the Executive Director position is determined according to the Compensation Policy, which is prepared and maintained by the Board of Directors, and which requires the organization to strive to provide compensation at the level of comparable positions in the organization's home state and at a similar scale. A market comparison is formed not more than every 2 years. Form 990, Part VI, Section C, Line 19 Documents required to be avaialable for public inspection (governing documents, conflicts of interest policy and financial statements) are available by calling the organization at 218 302 4030 or emailing our central email address info at farmcommons dot org. Form 990, Part IX, Line 24e Depreciation of website