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FARM COMMONS

EIN 45-5445890 DULUTH, MN

Revenue 2025
$812,313
Expenses 2025
$482,845

Program services were 74.0% of total expenses calculated — Part IX's program-services column over total expenses, both as filed.

As filed

Subsection
03
NTEE code
B99
Classification
1000
Street
302 W AUSTIN ST

These codes are the IRS's own and are shown exactly as filed. What each one means is in the Business Master File documentation (opens in a new tab).

Mission and programs · 2025

Mission

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.

Activities or mission (Part I)

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.

  • 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.

    Expenses $311,222 · Revenue $370,742

  • 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.

    Expenses $42,751 · Revenue $97,586

  • 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.

    Expenses $3,277 · Revenue $6,745

As filed on the 2025 return. The filer continues this part on Schedule O, which is not shown here.

Officers and directors · 2025

As listed in Part VII of the 2025 return, in the order the filer printed them. Each return names its own; this is not a roster the organization keeps with us.

  • Rachel Armstrong

    Ex officio and Non-Voting Director

    Total calculated
    $72,384
    From this org
    $72,384
    From related orgs
    $0
    Other
    $0
    Hours/week
    40

  • Aaron Sandvig

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Andrew Larson

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Tom Buller

    President

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Joy Kirkpatrick

    Secretary

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Kate Graham

    Treasurer

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Nathan Aaberg

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

  • Kate Giessel

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    1

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. Earlier years are each on their own filing page.

Filings

  • 2025
    Revenue
    $812,313
    Expenses
    $482,845
    Contributions
    $713,359
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2024
    Revenue
    $614,371
    Expenses
    $539,905
    Contributions
    $482,096
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2023
    Revenue
    $573,738
    Expenses
    $577,380
    Contributions
    $441,723
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2022
    Revenue
    $504,775
    Expenses
    $470,979
    Contributions
    $406,772
    Grants paid
    $0

The four totals the IRS asks for on Part I of the Form 990, as filed. A dash means the figure was not present on the return — not that it was zero.

Other returns filed

  • 2021 · 990

    Revenue
    $438,509
    Expenses
    $437,615
    Assets (EOY)
    $264,342

  • 2020 · 990

    Revenue
    $436,671
    Expenses
    $368,670
    Assets (EOY)
    $254,143

  • 2019 · 990

    Revenue
    $306,693
    Expenses
    $322,641
    Assets (EOY)
    $182,649

  • 2014 · 990

    Revenue
    $273,303
    Expenses
    $129,884
    Assets (EOY)
    $171,324

Nonprofiteer parses Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF, in a window of recent tax years. These returns are recorded from the IRS e-file index, so their figures were extracted by that index rather than read from the return here — treat them as a different source from the filings above, not as more of the same record. A dash means the index carries no figure; Form 990-T listings carry none at all.

Grants made

No itemized grants to organizations. Schedule I is filed only by organizations that granted more than $5,000 to a recipient, so most filers have none.

Grants received

Other IRS files

Auto-Revocation List

Not listed. The IRS publishes this list for organizations whose exemption was automatically revoked for failing to file for three consecutive years.

Publication 78

Listed as of 13 October 2026, under deductibility PC.

These are two separate IRS files on two separate schedules, shown as published and not reconciled with each other. Neither is a statement about whether a contribution is deductible today: 19,245 organizations appear in Publication 78 while the IRS's own revocation file lists them as currently revoked, more than half of those revoked before 2019. Absence from Publication 78 is evidence of nothing, and presence is not evidence either. Verify current status with the IRS before relying on it.

What this page reflects

The registration facts above come from the IRS Business Master File published 13 October 2026 and read 26 October 2026, for every organization at once. Returns through tax year 2025, the newest we have parsed for this organization.