Back in early 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the team at the nascent Harpswell News organization – the new nonprofit that wanted to relaunch the then-closed Harpswell Anchor – asked the Holbrook Community Foundation (HCF) to be our fiscal sponsor. Greg Barmore (then president of HCF) was wary. “It was risky, this idea of a nonprofit business plan,” Greg said one recent afternoon. “We didn’t think it would work.”
Still, HCF agreed to take a chance on us, and agreed to serve as our fiscal sponsor. “The new Anchor was a long shot,” Greg said. “But HCF was a long shot when we started, too!” The new relationship meant that HCF – a nonprofit organization on its own — could accept tax-deductible gifts on our behalf, while we waited for our official nonprofit status. It meant that we could relaunch the paper right away – in time for the summer season.
“That was important,” Greg told us. “People in Harpswell not only loved their monthly paper, but local businesses could use the help (through advertising. By the way, from our point of view, it was enlightened self-interest – HCF owned some of those businesses!”
Since then, the nonprofit news business model has been wildly successful, as 20% of the Harpswell population (summer and year-round) donates on an annual basis.
Greg himself has been a generous supporter of the Anchor. We asked him: why does he donate to the paper?
“I think the Anchor provides information about what’s going on in Harpswell to the people who live in Harpswell,” Greg responded. “And they can’t get that any other place. It also provides a place for businesses in Harpswell to communicate with year-round and summer residents as well as tourists.”
Greg, a retired GE executive (his last position was xxx) and his wife Donna moved to Harpswell in the mid-90s. Avid sailors, they were interested in retiring to a home on the water. They split their time between their home on Dingley Island and Highland Green in Topsham.
The Barmores make their annual donations to the Anchor – and other nonprofits – through the required minimum distribution of their IRA, and Greg thinks others should consider doing so, too.
That annual required minimum distribution increases the investor’s total taxable income for that year. According to Dan Hoebeke, a retired charitable estate planning attorney who wrote an Anchor column about making donations through the IRA distribution in 2022, “In addition, this increase in his income will cause his monthly premiums for Medicare Part B and Part D to go up and result in a portion of his Social Security benefits being taxed.”
If, instead, the investor has the IRA make payments as philanthropic gifts to qualified nonprofits, there is no tax required, and taxable income doesn’t increase. Medicare premiums will not go up and Social Security will not be taxed.
“It’s a real benefit,” Greg said. “Anyone who has an IRA and is of the age where minimum distributions are required should consider it.”
The Anchor is published by Harpswell News, a 501(c)3 organization, and it depends on annual donations from our community. We appreciate the Barmores’ generous support, and hope that others follow their lead in underwriting local, nonprofit news.
