Bags of stock donated

Gary Parratt

Good morning all,

I saw an old post on here but it didnt have an answer, so I am asking again.

Constituents donate bags of stock to us, the value of these is not smething that is easy to estimate, but what we would like to do is record on RE the number of bags.

I have thought of adding these as Gift in Kind with a value of the number of bags, but this may seem a little off as it is in a Currency field.

Does anybody here record the number of bags and report on it?

Thanks



Gary

Michael Manning 2

If I'm understanding this correctly, you have donors who gift you worthless stock?  I would probably have your board update your gift acceptance policy to exclude bags of stock. 



But if you are accepting them, you would process like any other stock donation.



Michael

Barbara Krause

Hi,

We typically have stock donated at year end.  Stock is always added to RE as a cash gift type.  Even if you have gotten stuck with something that is worthless or nearly worthless.our process would still be to have our bank/financial advisor sell it.  Once we are provided with a statement evaluating it's market value at the time it's sold, the donor is then provided with a tax receipt will the donation's actual value.

Sorry that you are being stuck as the bag holder!

Regards,

Barb

 

JoAnn Strommen

Off topic from original post: Barbara, I'm assuming you are in the US and just basing this on your statement "the donor is then provided with a tax receipt will the donation's actual value."    Hopefully that means you're stating thank you for your gift of X shares of ABC stock received on XX/XX/15...  If not, you should talk to your organization's auditors or tax advisor.  Gifts of stock/securities are considered a gift of property and should be receipted as gifts of stock.  See IRS pub 526 and 1771 ($ value at sale not required in receipt).  They are not receipted as cash gifts even if your org immediately sells them upon receipt.  Can message outside this thread if you have more questions.  Wouldn't want someone to get in trouble with IRS over incorrect receipting.

Gary Parratt

Hi,



thanks for responses, we have some Charity Shops, people just bring us in bags of "Stuff" almost anything. Second hand, new, Rags, books, cds. The bag may have very little value to us or could be more: We dont know until it is sold.



We want to record how many bags they brought in and also be able to report that in total, hence the thought of adding as Gift.

The retail arm uses a different piece of software for the accounting of sales and that also does the gift aid too.



It is purely a reporting requirement on numbers of bags received from a constiutent at the end of the year. I may just do it as an action with an attribute of number of bags - then export to excel to do the adding.

Was hoping I could do it without exporting to add them up, hence thinking of adding Gift as GIK with value of number of bags...



I may need a little more thought on this.

Thanks for making me think - it does help... Cheers



 

Jen Claudy

Aha!  I think there is a typo in the Subject of this post.  I believe Gary means "Bags of stuff donated" not stock.



There are still rules about this in the US, but based on your profile page, I believe you're in the UK, so I assume things differ.



We would record as a GIK with a value as the Gift Amount and a Receipt Amount of $0.00 unless the donor indicates a value.  We also assign a Gift Code of either "Donor Declared Value of GIK" or "Value Not Reported for GIK" and a Gift Note where the Description field is a brief description of the item(s).  The note is at the request of our CFO/Auditors/Finance Dept for their reporting...as is the value if the donor doesn't declare one.  We estimate a value for the Gift Amount in that case, but only because of that request, and that amount is never reported to the donor.



Our acknowledgement letters include this statement: "Standard fundraising practices do not permit us to provide a donor with valuation of a gift-in-kind; please consult your tax advisor on IRS requirements.  However, Beech Acres is pleased to recognize you commensurate with a gift of $XX.00, based on the value you reported." with the second sentence removed when the donor does not declare a value.



 

John Heizer

Jennifer Claudy:

Aha!  I think there is a typo in the Subject of this post.  I believe Gary means "Bags of stuff donated" not stock.



There are still rules about this in the US, but based on your profile page, I believe you're in the UK, so I assume things differ.



We would record as a GIK with a value as the Gift Amount and a Receipt Amount of $0.00 unless the donor indicates a value.  We also assign a Gift Code of either "Donor Declared Value of GIK" or "Value Not Reported for GIK" and a Gift Note where the Description field is a brief description of the item(s).  The note is at the request of our CFO/Auditors/Finance Dept for their reporting...as is the value if the donor doesn't declare one.  We estimate a value for the Gift Amount in that case, but only because of that request, and that amount is never reported to the donor.



Our acknowledgement letters include this statement: "Standard fundraising practices do not permit us to provide a donor with valuation of a gift-in-kind; please consult your tax advisor on IRS requirements.  However, Beech Acres is pleased to recognize you commensurate with a gift of $XX.00, based on the value you reported." with the second sentence removed when the donor does not declare a value.



 

I don't think it's a typo, just using "stock" as in things they stock on the shelves on their charity store, as opposed to issues of stock in a company.

Jen Claudy

John, you are probably correct.  Gary, my apologies.  On my initial reading of the post, I assumed Stock as in issues of stock in a company.  Once I saw the replies coming in, which appeared to be based on the same understanding I had, and Gary's comment, I figured it was a typo.



We do get people randomly dropping off piles of used items as a donation, and used to have Front Desk staff that was really good at evaluating whether we could use the items or not, and politely declining and suggesting an alternate charity in the area if we couldn't use whatever it was.  Now, we seem to be taking everything, and then figuring out how to use it.

Gary Parratt

Thanks Jennifer, and thanks John: spot on with the Stuff to stock our shelves....



The main reason for this is to sum up the number of bags at the end, but I have got more details from the user that brought it up (never trust a basic spec - I learned that when I was a programmer).

Anything we develop with RE must be suitable for all to use, not just for one person to do occasionally for some constituents.



Made them go back and define what they want to do and achieve with it more thoroughly. At the moment we are thinking of a gift record but not necessarily GIK and not a Pledge, but still have the ability to total them up. But if all fails we will use actions and sum them in Excel easily enough.

(We dont use the accounting package of RE so it is not too much of a problem to do it this way)

Until I get more details I guess this question will sit alone twiddling its thumbs until I return.

Thanks for the input though, helped me focus on the question more.



 

Zane Magnuson 2

I don't think I'm going to win any popularity contests with this, but I think you have to estimate the value of the inventory in the bags. If you want to record and credit these gifts-in-kind, you would need to make a Gift record with the "Gift In Kind" payment type and enter the estimated value of the gift.



If the donations are coming from companies/stores, you could ask that donors provide an estimated value of the goods. If it's individual people donating the items...well, you may be stuck rummaging.

Gary Parratt

Hi, thanks Zane.



There is no benefit in us doing that, and the people collecting the bags then entering on RE wont be in the position to estimate.

As said earlier - we have other software for the accounting side of the Retail arm of the charity.

We just want to totals the number of bags simply and report on them.

We are not getting  Gift Aid or reporting on sales from RE.... it is literally a longing to thank for the number of bags donated...



Once I know more I can decide the way forward. Impressed by the help I have had though.



Ta, again



 

Aldera Chisholm

Maybe I'm over-simplifying, but could it be entering a 0 value gift and entering the number of bags in the reference field? We do that for our gifts we want to capture, but have no measurable value - as a zoo we have unusual GIK donations from time to time.

 

Gary Parratt

Another Interesting option, I like it but can you do a report on the total of bags?

Hmmm, interesting though, if all else fails this could be ideal for exporting to excel and working it there...

Still awaiting more detail from the user... maybe a while



Thanks again.

Gary

 

Aldera Chisholm

No, you'd have to output a query on those constituents gift with the output of reference line & check it out in excel. Which, while not the cleanest solution, is sometimes the easiest.

 

Jen Claudy

You could do a Gift Record with "Other" as the Type (unless you use that for something else already) and/or a Gift Subtype, and then instead of entering a value, you could enter the number of bags as the Gift Amount.  3 bags would be entered as $3.00.  But so long as you've documented the heck out of the setup and process, you should be okay, and can easily report on these "gifts". 



Alternately, you could use a Gift Attribute where the Description field is a Number.  Those can be easily summed, possibly with a canned report, but I'm not sure on that.

Zane Magnuson 2

What about creating a new Gift Attribute called "Number of Bags" with the "Numbers" data type. You still can't sum it in RE as far as I know, but it might be easier to manage within RE and it's possible you'll be able to Query on amounts (such as "Number of Bags > 2").

Zane Magnuson 2

Jennifer Claudy:

You could do a Gift Record with "Other" as the Type (unless you use that for something else already) and/or a Gift Subtype, and then instead of entering a value, you could enter the number of bags as the Gift Amount.  3 bags would be entered as $3.00.  But so long as you've documented the heck out of the setup and process, you should be okay, and can easily report on these "gifts". 



Alternately, you could use a Gift Attribute where the Description field is a Number.  Those can be easily summed, possibly with a canned report, but I'm not sure on that.

You owe me a Coke 

Gary Parratt

Think gift type - with value of bag number and Documenting the Heck out of it if what they want.

I had a thought of doing it that way, and the attribute way... Cant think of a neater way.



Thanks all...