Gifts of Commodities

Cash isn’t the only way you can support Kansas FFA. While monetary gifts might be the most common, there are other vehicles of support that can accomplish the mission of supporting FFA members, chapters and agricultural educators, while providing some handy tax incentives at the same time.

Just as the FFA was founded on the principles of developing leaders in production agriculture, farmers and ranchers have the opportunity to support the future leaders of the agriculture industry by donating agricultural commodities. The Gifts of Commodity program allows a producer to designate a number of heads of livestock or bushels of grain for the benefit of the Kansas FFA Foundation. That production is then sold, with the proceeds coming directly to the Kansas FFA Foundation.

“Gifts of commodities have a great benefit to an agriculture producer because the farmer or rancher does not have to recognize the income as it goes directly to the organization,” said Robert Kohman, farmer and Kansas State Farm Management Association Professional Development Officer. “I think any agriculture producer wanting to support a charitable cause, like the Kansas FFA Foundation, should be utilizing gifts of grain as it’s easy and provides the best tax advantage to the producer.”

The process is easy. Simply notify your merchandiser, such as a grain elevator or salebarn, how much of the commodity you would like to sell to the benefit of the Kansas FFA Foundation. The merchandiser will notify the Kansas FFA Foundation of the commodity gift and a receipt will be generated for the sale. Agriculture producers like Kansas FFA Alumni Mike and Jodi Guetterman of Bucyrus, Kan. have utilized gifts of commodities.

“The FFA has provided opportunities to our family for generations. When we heard that the Kansas FFA Foundation was developing an Endowment Fund that will provide funding to the Kansas FFA for future generations, we knew we wanted to become involved,” said the Guettermans. “The Gifts of Commodity option provided us an easy and tax-efficient avenue to donate to the endowment. We simply determined the amount of grain we wanted to donate and put those bushels in the Kansas FFA Foundation’s name at the elevator. The FFA Foundation then handled selling the grain and collecting funds from that point.”

More information is available on the Kansas FFA website, ksffa.org/foundation