How To Double Your Money and Reduce Your Taxes

I am going to vary from my normal collecting feature this week to use this space to bring you up to date on an important project with a looming deadline.

As you well know, Craftsman Farms was the home for Gustav Stickley and his family during the pinnacle years of his career. After moving his editorial offices to New York in 1905, he began buying land in Morris Plains, New Jersey, in 1908, where he soon built several farm buildings, cottages and his Log Home.

Eighty years later, Stickley's home at Craftsman Farms was saved from a fate worse than death when a group of determined preservationists prevented a New York developer from turning it into a clubhouse for a proposed complex of surrounding condominiums. Soon thereafter the non-profit Craftsman Farms Foundation, Inc. was formed to manage the site for public benefit. The Foundation created the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms and is charged with raising all the funds needed to operate the site. Through grants, gifts, admission fees and fundraising events the Foundation pays for staff, restoration, improvements, repairs, publications and exhibitions.

This past year a series of violent storms ripped across New Jersey, forcing the staff to close the museum for several weeks for emergency repairs. The museum was closed for several more weeks to make the structural repairs needed to protect the Log House’s central staircase. The result was seven weeks of lost income that has had a serious impact on their tight budget and threatens many of their education programs.

During the month of December, however, Craftsman Farms has the opportunity to take advantage of a Matching Challenge Grant. For every dollar that you and I donate this month, an equal amount up to a total of $7,500 will also be donated. In other words, when you donate $100, it immediately becomes $200.

To make sure this Matching Grant Challenge gets off to a rousing start, ArtsAndCraftsCollector.com will donate $500, which means Craftsman Farms will have $1,000 to help make up for their lost revenue this year.

December is the time for us to all to be generous, so I hope you will make the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms the beneficiary of your generosity.

Remember, too, that your December donation to Craftsman Farms is going to reduce your tax bill come April 15.

And who would you rather give money: the Internal Revenue Service -- or Craftsman Farms?

You can answer that question by clicking on the link below!

Many thanks!

- Bruce

http://stickleymuseum.org/support/challenge-grant.html