Illinois Farm Bureau’s Employees Reap Increased Salaries

It pays to work for the Illinois Farm Bureau.

The nonprofit organization’s three top earners all experienced pay increases between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, according to Form 990s obtained using Candid’s nonprofit database Guidestar.

Country Financial CEO Jim Jacobs is the highest-paid employee of the bureau and its related organizations. In 2022, he received $1,881,115 in total compensation — an increase of over 40%, or $539,164, since 2020. Unlike most reported employees, Jacobs has $0 listed under reportable compensation from the organization and instead receives most of his compensation from related organizations.

Farm bureaus are nonprofit organizations intended to support farmers with education and political action. The national arm, called the American Farm Bureau Federation, is based in Washington, D.C. and all 50 states and Puerto Rico have their own affiliate farm bureaus.

The affiliate in Illinois, known as the Illinois Farm Bureau but officially named the Illinois Agricultural Association, is based in Bloomington. Its primary mission as described on its website is to “improve the economic well-being of agriculture and enrich the quality of family farm life.” According to its website, the bureau currently has over 400,000 members.

The next two highest-paid employees are Jennifer Vance, the organization’s general counsel, who made a total of $835,000; and Alan Dodds, the vice president of finance and treasurer, who made a total of $546,000. Each had increased total compensation compared with the previous year.

As a nonprofit organization, the bureau is required to fill out a tax Form 990 each year. Additionally, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires these tax forms to be publicly available.

Guidestar has a detailed profile of the Illinois Agricultural Association and its Form 990s dating back to 2004. CU-CitizenAccess focused on the forms from 2020, 2021 and 2022 for this report. The most recent Form 990 for the bureau on GuideStar is for 2022, or the tax year beginning in September 2021 and ending in August 2022.

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