Data Entry: Gifts In-Kind

Melissa Bush 2

How does your organization track in-kind gifts?

• Do you enter all of them?
• Do you value/weigh food?
• What information do you record?
• Do you send receipts/thank you's?

Any other information is greatly appreciated

JoAnn Strommen

yes, we enter - just going to hit your last question - Yes, we send a thank you/receipt combo letter. No dollar value. Lists with as much detail as possible the in-kind donation. We always want to thank our donors. Statement in letter suggests they contact their tax advisor regarding tax deductability/implications. 

Cathy Spencer

JoAnn Strommen:

yes, we enter - just going to hit your last question - Yes, we send a thank you/receipt combo letter. No dollar value. Lists with as much detail as possible the in-kind donation. We always want to thank our donors. Statement in letter suggests they contact their tax advisor regarding tax deductability/implications. 

We follow this practice as well.

Angela Tuttle 2

Melissa Bush:

How does your organization track in-kind gifts?

• Do you enter all of them?
• Do you value/weigh food?
• What information do you record?
• Do you send receipts/thank you's?

Any other information is greatly appreciated

 

We also enter gifts in-kind. We too record s much information about the gift that we can. Donor's complete a gift in-kind form and they value the item(s) donated and sometimes an appraisal is needed. We send a thank you and a receipt. 

Nandini P

We have created an gift type as Gift in Kind and sub type line; Art work, Voucher, services etc to record what kind of GIK it is

Yes we do enter all GIK, depending on Type eg : Voucher, Training etc we add $$ Value and we send acknowledgment letter for all GIK no receipt

And we record/ copy any kind of specific communication received from donor under Gift> miscellaneous>notepad

Hope this helps

 

Sheila Wortham

Melissa Bush:

How does your organization track in-kind gifts?

• Do you enter all of them?
• Do you value/weigh food?
• What information do you record?
• Do you send receipts/thank you's?

Any other information is greatly appreciated

 

We enter all gift in kind received, including the description of items and value assigned by the donor.  Within two day an acknowledgment letters is sent to the donor. 

Ryan Hyde

We're at a humane society and get hundreds of in-kind donations a week. We do enter them all into RE, but they're not top priority. We do not send out acknowledgements - the donor receives a tax receipt form when dropping the gift off if they want want, much like you might get at a Good Will drop off location (at least the ones around here). We record a basic description of the gift, a gift amount (which is determined by our finance department), the category of gift (food, household goods, equine equipment, etc.) and some an IRS category code. 


We do send thank-yous for in-kinds given as auction items at our gala, but that's a whole different ballgame than the piles of sheets, blankets, and shredded paper we receive at our front desk. Not that we're not grateful for those things - they get put to good use - but there's just so much stuff, and the paperwork doesn't get to my office in a timely fashion anyway.


One time someone left a hawk in one of our donation bins. Like, an actual living animal, in a cage, with a towel draped over it. That's not really relevant here, but I like to tell that story. The hawk went to a bird sanctuary, FYI.

Ryan Hyde

Haha, yeah, the term "donate" isn't totally applicable to the situation. More like "illegally abandoned an animal that had been illegally owned because you can't own a hawk, for real there are laws about that." :P 


That person did not get a thank-you letter.

Jen Claudy

Ryan Hyde:

Haha, yeah, the term "donate" isn't totally applicable to the situation. More like "illegally abandoned an animal that had been illegally owned because you can't own a hawk, for real there are laws about that." :P 


That person did not get a thank-you letter.

Did that person leave a name and address or request a receipt for tax purposes?  If so, I hope the thank you letter was delivered in person by law enforcement.

Heather MacKenzie

Jen Claudy:

 

Ryan Hyde:

Haha, yeah, the term "donate" isn't totally applicable to the situation. More like "illegally abandoned an animal that had been illegally owned because you can't own a hawk, for real there are laws about that." :P 


That person did not get a thank-you letter.

Did that person leave a name and address or request a receipt for tax purposes?  If so, I hope the thank you letter was delivered in person by law enforcement.

 

Ditto what Jen Claudy‍ said!  Ryan Hyde‍, tell us more...

Ryan Hyde

Hah, if only!

Christine Cooke 2

we enter all of them, with a short description of the item and if the FMV is included we add that also, otherwise it is a $0.  Gift Type is InKind and we use the option of GIK not included in financials reports.  

They are sent a thank you which includes that short description but not an $$ amount.

Elizabeth Johnson

We never include a dollar amount in a G-i-K acknowledgement. We do try to track the value of the item to us in RE. We do have some significant gifts that the donor had an independent appraisal done on. We still don't list the amount in acknowledgements although the donations in those cases end up in our 990s. We exclude G-i-K from our annual statements.