Farm Commons

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
455445890
IRS 990 coverage
2014–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025
Location
Duluth, MN, USA
Phone
2183024030
Rating
75
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Education N.E.C.

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$812,313
Expenses
$482,845
Assets
$689,330
Liabilities
$4,406

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

Leadership & pay

8 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • Tom Buller (President)

Highest reported compensation

  • Rachel Armstrong (Ex officio and Non-Voting Director): $72,384 total reported compensation

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

Overview

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.

What it reported doing in 2025

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.

Operating model

Revenue model
Mixed. Its operating money came from several sources; no one source provided a clear majority.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 58
  • Transparency & Controls: 92
  • Accountability: 79
  • Sustainability: 67
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 44.2%; rating input score 44
  • Program expense ratio: 74%; rating input score 74
  • Fundraising efficiency: $54.46 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 77; 77th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: Limited
  • 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: 4 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 50
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Fail
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 40.6%; rating input score 87; 87th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.43; rating input score 54; 54th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 15%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 8.7% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 8.9% per year; rating input score 100; 57th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 10.9% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 44.2% of revenue deployed · 74% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 7 of 7 board members independent · 4 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $357K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $72K · 8 people listed
  • Consistency: 42 of 42 current checks pass
  • Schedules: 4 filed schedules · includes major donors
  • Filing history: 7 filing years from 2014 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
  • Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
  • 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.

  • Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 44/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 8 not reported.
  • Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 54/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 25/100.