---
name: in_kind_gift_acceptance
description: Accept in-kind and noncash gifts well for a nonprofit, charity, school, or community organisation: write and run a board gift acceptance policy with routine, review, and decline tiers, log intake and record fair value for the books without valuing the gift for the donor, issue IRS acknowledgments, handle Forms 8283, 8282, 1098-C, and Form 990 Schedule M duties, and work storage, use, resale, and thank-you reporting to a closed record. Triggers on in-kind gifts, gifts in kind, noncash donations, donated goods, vehicles, real estate, securities, or services, gift acceptance policy, declining a donation, donation intake, or valuing donated property.
---

# In-Kind Gift Acceptance

## Purpose

Run the full life of a noncash gift, from the first offer to a closed record, so a generous gift does not turn into storage bills, liability, or a donor whose deduction fails on a missing form. The skill covers goods, equipment, food, vehicles, real estate, securities, art, intellectual property, crypto, donated services, and use of facilities. It ships a policy template, intake and acknowledgment templates, three references, and a tested intake checker that flags review, acknowledgment, and filing duties row by row.

Scope is United States federal tax and US GAAP reporting. State rules on solicitation, resale, and property tax vary, check them for the state in question and record that you did. This skill is operating guidance, not tax or legal advice for a specific gift. A high value or unusual gift still goes to the organisation accountant or lawyer.

## Workflow

1. **Put a board adopted policy in place before the unusual gift arrives.** Adapt `assets/gift-acceptance-policy-template.md`, fill every bracket, and get it adopted. Sort every gift type into three tiers: routine acceptance, review before acceptance, and do not accept. Full tier lists and the reasons behind them are in `references/policy-and-review.md`. The policy is what lets a staff member decline an outdated server rack or a mortgaged lot without making it personal: the National Council of Nonprofits makes the same point, a written policy depersonalizes the hard call and gives staff a consistent route.

2. **Triage the offer against the policy before anything moves.** For a routine gift, accept and go to intake. For a review tier gift, pause possession and title until the named reviewer decides in writing. Review triggers include real estate, closely held securities, vehicles and boats, art, intellectual property, crypto, any restriction, and any gift that needs paid storage, insurance, transport, or repair. For real estate, complete title and lien search, environmental review where history calls for it, a 12 month carrying cost budget, and legal review before signing anything. A gift already sitting in your hallway is harder to decline than a gift still on paper, so triage on the offer, not on delivery.

3. **Run the decline tests, and decline cleanly when one fails.** Test in order: net cost, no route to use or sell or transfer or lawfully dispose, a restriction the organisation cannot honour, liability that cannot be cleared or priced, and board level trust. Any one failure is a decline. Use the structure and the worked scripts in `references/decline-and-disposition.md`: specific thanks, one short policy reason, one line on what was checked, and a real alternative if one exists. Decline promptly, while the donor still has other routes.

4. **Log intake the day an accepted gift arrives.** One row per gift in the format in `assets/intake-and-acknowledgment-templates.md`: donor, date title or possession moved, category, description with serial, VIN, or parcel detail as needed, donor claimed value if stated, recorded fair value, valuation method, restriction, condition with a photo for resale items, goods or services provided, disposition plan, and storage location. No storage location means the gift is not yet accepted, find it a place or decline it. Then run `python3 scripts/intake_check.py intake.csv`. The worked file `assets/intake-example.csv` produces flags on all five rows, including a Section B and 1098-C flag on the vehicle row and a condition flag on the poor condition clothing row.

5. **Record fair value for the books, and never value the gift for the donor.** These are two different numbers with two owners, see `references/valuation-and-reporting.md`. The donor owns the claimed value, under IRS Publication 561 fair market value is the price between a willing buyer and a willing seller with reasonable knowledge. The organisation owns the recorded value, set by category: market quotes for publicly traded securities, guide value adjusted for condition for vehicles, comparable resale prices for equipment and household goods, a consistent per unit method for food and bulk supplies, an appraisal or broker opinion for real estate. If a gift cannot be used or sold, record it at no value with the reason, or decline it. Do not book revenue for unusable goods.

6. **Apply the services test before booking any donated time.** Under ASC 958-605, recognize contributed services only if they create or enhance a nonfinancial asset, or they require specialized skills, come from a person who has those skills, and would typically need to be bought if not donated. A pro bono audit by a CPA firm passes. General volunteer hours, event help, and board time fail: track them for narrative reporting, book nothing, and report nothing on Schedule M. The value of services and of use of facilities is not a donor tax deduction, so thank the donor warmly and do not issue a value acknowledgment for the time itself.

7. **Send the formal acknowledgment, separate from the thank you.** For any single contribution of $250 or more the donor needs a contemporaneous written acknowledgment with the IRS elements: organisation name, cash amount if any, a description but not a value of the noncash gift, and a statement on goods or services, with a description and good faith estimate if any were provided, or the intangible religious benefits statement if that applies. Templates are in `assets/intake-and-acknowledgment-templates.md`. If a payment over $75 was partly for goods or services, add the quid pro quo disclosure at solicitation or receipt. Send the acknowledgment at receipt, not at filing season.

8. **Handle the forms your signature or filing triggers.** Signing Form 8283 Section B for a donor claim over $5,000 acknowledges receipt and organisation status, it does not agree to the donor value, and no appraisal is needed for publicly traded securities. Put every Section B gift on a 3 year disposition watch: a sale, exchange, or disposal within 3 years means Form 8282 to the IRS with a copy to the donor. For a motor vehicle, boat, or airplane claimed over $500, file Form 1098-C and give the donor a copy within 30 days of the sale if sold without significant intervening use or material improvement, otherwise within 30 days of the contribution, following the current form instructions for the use case. Collect the donor taxpayer identification number securely at intake when one of these forms is in view. Full form map in `references/valuation-and-reporting.md`.

9. **Work disposition on a clock, and report like ASU 2020-07 will ask.** Set a review date by category at intake: days for perishables, weeks for resale goods, months for held property. Route in order: use in a program, transfer to a partner that can use it, sell through the route that fits the category, auction, then recycle or dispose with the cost recorded. Record gross proceeds, fees, and net on the gift record. For the financial statements, present contributed nonfinancial assets as a separate line in the statement of activities and keep, by category, the data ASU 2020-07 disclosure needs: monetized or utilized and the programs if utilized, the monetize or use policy, donor restrictions, and valuation technique and inputs. Year end, feed Form 990 Schedule M from the same intake file: Schedule M applies over $25,000 in noncash contributions, or at any amount for art, historical treasures, and qualified conservation contributions, across its 28 property types.

10. **Close the record only when every duty is done.** A gift record closes when disposition and proceeds are recorded, the acknowledgment date is on file, any Form 8282 or 1098-C duty is filed or calendared inside its window, and any restricted gift report owed to the donor is sent, naming what the gift did or what it sold for. If a sale came in well under what the donor expected, report the gross proceeds plainly through the form that carries them and in the donor report. Surprises at tax time are how a good donor is lost.

## Output Contract

Deliver all of the following for a policy setup, a gift decision, or a period review:

- **Policy pack**: the completed gift acceptance policy from `assets/gift-acceptance-policy-template.md` with no brackets left, the three tier lists filled for the organisation own categories, named reviewers and response times, and the adoption and review dates.
- **Gift decision memo**: for each review tier or declined gift, the category, the test results in step 3 order, the decision and decider, the due diligence attached for real estate or other high risk categories, and for a decline, the exact letter sent, following `references/decline-and-disposition.md`.
- **Intake register**: the intake CSV in the checker format, with the output of `python3 scripts/intake_check.py intake.csv` quoted, every flag either acted on or carried as a dated open item. A row with a blank storage location or a blank valuation method on a booked value is reported as incomplete, not filed away.
- **Valuation worksheet**: per category, the recorded fair value total, the method and inputs used, and the separation note confirming no donor claimed value was copied into an acknowledgment.
- **Acknowledgment pack**: for each gift at or over $250, the acknowledgment sent and its date, checked element by element against the IRS list in `references/valuation-and-reporting.md`, plus any quid pro quo disclosures for payments over $75 with goods or services.
- **Forms calendar**: every Form 8283 Section B signature given, every Form 8282 watch item with its 3 year end date, every Form 1098-C with its 30 day donor copy date, and the Schedule M year total by property type.
- **Disposition and reporting summary**: by category, what was used and in which programs, what was monetized and the net proceeds, what remains in storage past its review date, and the ASU 2020-07 disclosure draft built from those numbers.

## Operating Rules

1. **The acknowledgment never states a value for a noncash gift.** Description only. A value in the letter reads as the organisation agreeing to the donor number, and it is the single most common error in this work.
2. **No possession before review on a review tier gift.** Hallway pressure is not approval. Hold the offer on paper until the named reviewer signs.
3. **Staff give no tax advice and promise no deduction.** State the organisation tax status accurately, say deductibility depends on the donor situation, and point the donor to their own adviser. That boundary belongs in the policy and in staff training.
4. **A restriction you cannot honour is a decline, not a hope.** Renegotiate it in writing before acceptance or decline the gift. Accepting first and improvising later breaks trust and can break the restriction terms.
5. **Condition is recorded as seen.** Clothing and household items need good used condition or better for a donor deduction, with the single item over $500 appraisal case apart. Never upgrade the condition note to help a donor, and never promise their deduction either way.
6. **Disposition dates are set at intake.** The 3 year Form 8282 window and the 30 day Form 1098-C donor copy clock are both lost by waiting until sale time to think about them. Calendar both on day one.
7. **Services are booked only on the ASC test.** If it fails the test, the help still gets thanked and counted in hours for narrative reporting. It does not get a revenue line.
8. **Never invent sector numbers.** Average gift values, resale recovery rates, and acceptance rates enter a plan only from the organisation own records or a named source checked for this work.
9. **A net loss gift is data.** Log its full cost against its category. The next policy review should see which categories lose money, in the organisation own numbers.
10. **When a gift is large, unusual, or contested, stop and get the accountant or lawyer.** This skill runs the routine and flags the hard cases. It does not clear them.