When planning our annual Harvest Auction, our goal is always to hold the event after a majority of farm harvest is complete, but admittedly that unseasonably warm fall had us scratching our heads for a bit. Nevertheless, it seemed like the labor-intensive beets and potatoes wrapped up just in time. 

This reminded me of a note that Kim Droog, owner of Legacy CPA in Grafton, had shared with me earlier this spring regarding gifts of commodities, which could be another way to support UMC. She said it’s a great tax-savings opportunity for charitable farmers, so I wanted to mention it in this column. 

One way to do this would be for the farmer to fill out a form that directs his or her co-op or elevator to have a specified number of bushels or even livestock gifted to the North Dakota Community Foundation. The farmer can also designate which NDCF fund that the sale of these commodities would go toward, including the Lynn D Ebert Memorial Fund for Unity Medical Center Grafton. Then the farmer is eligible for tax reductions greater than if he or she donates cash since they can still deduct the expenses for growing and harvesting the commodities, reducing federal and state taxes without having to itemize. Self-employed farmers would have an even greater savings due to the Medicare and Social Security taxes paid on farm income. 

You can read more about this at www.ndcf.net/give/gifting-agricultural-commodities.html, and I would also encourage you to talk to your tax advisor if you have questions about this. 

You might think that things slow down in the UMC Foundation office when the Harvest Auction is over, but truthfully our office gets quite busy at the end of the calendar year. By the time this newsletter is printed, we will have passed Giving Tuesday on Dec. 4, primarily a national online fundraising campaign, when we see an uptick in donations. We also receive memorials on behalf of UMC leading up to its Tree of Lights Community Remembrance Ceremony, this year held on Dec. 11. 

In addition to these events, we send out a year-end direct mail piece, which has an impressive response rate, proving that direct mail fundraising is still impactful. We are also enrolling staff in our second year of the UMC Staff Giving Program, which in its inaugural year in 2024, raised over $4,000 that went toward patient needs outside of health care (e.g., clothing, shoes, transportation or services). As many of our staff know, a patient’s health care often continues after they leave UMC and sometimes involves more than clinical care. Sometimes it’s providing transportation, assisting with laundry or providing clean clothes.