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Nonprofit Management

Gift Acceptance Policy: What to Include and How to Apply It to Non-Cash Gifts

Sherman Hsieh
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Gift Acceptance Policy: What to Include and How to Apply It to Non-Cash Gifts

Last updated: October 9, 2026 · Independent guide · We do not sell rankings or coverage.

A gift acceptance policy is a board-approved document that says which gifts your nonprofit will take, who can approve them, which gift types need review before you say yes, and what happens to an asset after it arrives. It should also set your Form 8283 and Form 8282 procedures and a liquidation rule for securities. The IRS asks about it directly: Schedule M of Form 990, line 31, asks whether you have “a gift acceptance policy that requires the review of any nonstandard contributions” (IRS Schedule M (Form 990), 2025).

How to use this template

Replace each sample clause in the outline with your own wording, set your own thresholds and approvers in the review matrix, and have your finance committee and counsel review the draft before the board adopts it. Then add the CRM and ledger fields shown later so the policy is applied to every gift. Dollar thresholds here are an illustration, not a recommendation.

Sample gift acceptance policy outline

Section What it covers Sample clause
1. Purpose and mission fit Gifts must support the mission “We accept gifts that advance our mission and that we can use or convert to cash without undue cost or risk.”
2. Donor advice disclaimer No tax or legal advice to donors “Donors should consult their own tax, legal and financial advisers before making a gift.”
3. Gift acceptance committee Members and response time “The committee includes the treasurer, the executive director and the development director, and responds within 10 business days.”
4. Approval levels Who accepts which gifts See the review matrix below.
5. Gifts accepted without review Cash, cards, public securities “Staff may accept these gifts and process them under standard procedures.”
6. Gifts requiring review Real estate, private stock, crypto, tangible property, naming and restricted gifts “No staff member may commit the organization to accept these gifts before committee approval.”
7. Gifts we decline Mission conflicts, liabilities, restrictions you cannot honor “We decline gifts whose costs or liabilities are likely to exceed their value.”
8. Liquidation and investment When assets are sold “Securities and digital assets are sold as soon as practical after receipt unless the finance committee directs otherwise.”
9. Costs Who pays appraisal and transfer costs “The donor pays for the qualified appraisal. We pay for our own due diligence.”
10. IRS forms and receipts Receipts, Forms 8283, 8282, 1098-C “Only the CFO or a designee may sign Form 8283. Finance tracks every signed form for three years.”
11. Naming and recognition Minimums, term, revocation “The board may remove a name if a pledge is unpaid or the name harms our reputation.”
12. Gift agreements and restrictions When a signed agreement is required “Restricted gifts of $25,000 or more require a signed gift agreement.”
13. Review cycle Policy review cycle “The board reviews this policy every two years.”

Review matrix for non-cash gifts (illustrative thresholds)

Gift type Review before acceptance Approver After acceptance
Publicly traded securities None beyond transfer instructions Development staff Sell within days under the liquidation rule
Closely held stock, LLC or partnership interests Transfer restrictions, buyer for the shares, UBTI from pass-through income, counsel review Committee Sign Form 8283 Section B; track the 3-year Form 8282 window
Cryptocurrency and other digital assets Accepted tokens list, custody or processor, sanctions screening CFO up to $50,000; committee above Liquidate on receipt; sign Form 8283 Section B above $5,000
Real estate Title, survey, Phase I environmental assessment, mortgage, carrying costs, marketability Committee and board Sign Form 8283; Form 8282 if sold within 3 years
Tangible personal property (art, equipment, collections) Related use, storage, insurance, resale market ED up to $25,000; committee above Record intended use; Form 8282 Part IV certification if relevant
Vehicles, boats, planes Title, condition, sale channel Finance Form 1098-C within 30 days if claimed value exceeds $500
Naming gifts Minimum gift, pledge schedule, reputational check, term Board Signed gift agreement with revocation clause
Restricted or endowment gifts Can you honor the purpose for its full term? ED and CFO Gift agreement; fund code in the ledger

Walking through each part of the template

Approval levels

Set approval by gift type first and value second. A small parcel of land can carry more risk than a large stock transfer. At Drexel University, equipment above $500,000, artwork above $25,000 and all real estate go to the Gift Acceptance Committee, and gift agreements over $1,000,000 need the president’s signature (Drexel University Gift Acceptance Policy, revised December 4, 2024). Also define what counts as acceptance, a question Carr, Riggs & Ingram, an accounting firm serving nonprofits, puts on its checklist (CRI, April 16, 2026).

Real estate

Require a Phase I environmental site assessment before you take title: the EPA says All Appropriate Inquiries under ASTM E1527-21, done before acquisition, can support CERCLA liability protection (EPA, updated May 7, 2026). Drexel requires a Phase I audit on every real property gift.

Send mortgaged property to counsel. Under 26 U.S.C. § 514(c)(2)(B), debt on gifted property escapes acquisition indebtedness treatment for 10 years only if the mortgage and the donor’s ownership both date back more than 5 years, and only if you do not assume the debt (26 U.S.C. § 514, Cornell LII, no date shown).

Securities and the liquidation rule

Write a sell-on-receipt rule into the policy and name the broker account. Timing also affects your cash flow statement. Under ASU 2012-05, proceeds from donated financial assets are operating cash flow only if the assets had no sale limits, were sold nearly immediately and were not restricted for long-term purposes. Withum reads “nearly immediately” as days rather than months (Withum, January 15, 2015).

Closely held stock

Your review should ask who will buy the shares, whether a shareholder agreement restricts transfer, and whether an S corporation or partnership interest will pass through taxable income. Above $5,000 the donor needs a qualified appraisal, because the regulation’s exceptions cover publicly traded securities but not private stock (26 CFR 1.170A-16(d)(2), eCFR, current as of October 7, 2026).

Cryptocurrency

Decide which tokens you accept, how you receive them and when you sell. Drexel routes every crypto gift through a third-party agent that sells it promptly. The IRS Office of Chief Counsel concluded that a crypto gift claimed at more than $5,000 needs a qualified appraisal, not an exchange price (IRS CCA 202302012, released January 13, 2023), so expect to sign Form 8283 Section B for larger gifts.

Form 8283 and Form 8282 obligations

For property claimed at more than $5,000, you sign Part V of Form 8283 Section B. The signer must be “an official authorized to sign the tax returns of the organization, or a person specifically designated to sign Form 8283” (IRS Instructions for Form 8283, revised December 2025). Part V states that the acknowledgment “does not represent agreement with the claimed fair market value,” and it commits you to file Form 8282 if you dispose of the property within 3 years (IRS Form 8283, Rev. December 2025).

Form 8282 is due within 125 days after the disposition. Items the donor certified at $500 or less, and items distributed for your charitable purpose, are exempt. The failure-to-file penalty is generally $50 per form, and a $10,000 penalty can apply to anyone who identifies tangible personal property as having a use related to your exempt purpose when that use was not intended (IRS Form 8282, Rev. October 2021). For vehicles, the Form 1098-C acknowledgment is due no later than 30 days after the sale or contribution date (IRS Instructions for Form 1098-C, Rev. November 2019).

Naming rights

Treat a naming gift as a contract with minimums, a term, a link to pledge payments and a removal right. Drexel names a facility for its useful life unless the agreement says otherwise, and its president can revoke a name for an unpaid pledge or material reputational harm.

Flagging gift types in your donor CRM and accounting system

Add these fields so reviewed gift types are visible at entry and route to finance.

Field Values System Purpose
Asset type Public stock, private stock, crypto, real estate, tangible, vehicle, in-kind goods, services CRM Maps to Schedule M lines and review rules
Review status Not required, pending, approved, declined CRM Blocks receipting until approved
Approval date and approver Date; name CRM Audit trail for the committee
Form 8283 signed Yes or no; date signed CRM Flags the 3-year Form 8282 window; feeds Schedule M line 29
Sale date, proceeds, fees Date; dollar amounts CRM and GL Gain or loss; Form 8282 due date (sale date plus 125 days)
Non-cash asset dimension Same list as asset type GL Ties ledger totals to the CRM for Schedule M and audit

Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud’s Gift Transaction object has a PaymentMethod picklist that includes Stock, Cryptocurrency, In-Kind and Asset (Salesforce Developer Guide, Winter ’27, no date shown). Raiser’s Edge NXT has a stock/property gift type with issuer, symbol, number of units and average price fields, and a Sell action that records the sale date, amount and broker fee (Blackbaud help, no date shown). Bloomerang tells users to enter stock gifts as In-Kind and, because it has no default stock filter, to create a custom field such as “Stock Gift” (Bloomerang help, August 3, 2026).

In the ledger, a dimension or class is cleaner than a long list of revenue accounts. In Sage Intacct, you can create a user-defined dimension under General Ledger > Setup > Configuration > Advanced GL options > User-defined dimensions (Sage Intacct help, last modified October 8, 2026).

Common mistakes

  • A fundraiser commits before review. State that only the named approver can accept a reviewed gift type.
  • Signing Form 8283 without tracking it. The signature commits you to a 3-year Form 8282 window that runs from the date you received the property. Route every signed copy to finance and log it.
  • Treating Form 8283 as agreement on value. Your books use fair value under GAAP, which can differ from the donor’s appraisal.
  • Holding crypto or stock by default. Without a liquidation rule, nobody owns the market risk.
  • No exit clause on naming. A revocation clause is much harder to add after a dispute.
  • Never mapping the policy to systems. Without an asset type field, Schedule M figures and Form 8282 deadlines depend on memory.

When to move from a spreadsheet to software

A spreadsheet log works for a handful of non-cash gifts a year. Move the fields into your donor CRM once these gifts arrive monthly or more than one person signs Form 8283. Raiser’s Edge NXT and Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud handle stock natively; Bloomerang relies on custom fields. Our guides to donor management software and nonprofit accounting software compare the options, and our overview of board management software covers tools for routing committee approvals.

How we researched this

We read the current IRS forms and instructions cited, the appraisal regulation on eCFR, 26 U.S.C. § 514, IRS CCA 202302012 and EPA guidance, compared published policies and practitioner guidance, and checked vendor documentation on October 9, 2026. This is not legal or tax advice.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions

Does a nonprofit legally need a gift acceptance policy?

No federal law requires one. Schedule M of Form 990 asks whether you have a policy that requires review of nonstandard contributions, so filers that receive non-cash gifts are asked about it publicly.

Should we sell donated stock right away?

Most organizations do, and the policy should say so. Selling within days also keeps unrestricted proceeds in operating cash flow under ASU 2012-05.

What happens if we sell donated property within three years?

If the donor filed Section B of Form 8283, you generally must file Form 8282 within 125 days of the sale and give the donor a copy. Items the donor certified at $500 or less, and items distributed for your charitable purpose, are exempt.

How often should the board update the policy?

Review it every one to two years, as Lynn Gaumer of Stelter recommends in The Giving Block’s guidance. Update it sooner when you add a new asset type.

Sources

Sherman Hsieh

CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Business-Software.com
Independent analysis of enterprise software — ERP, CRM and more
Sherman Hsieh is the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Business-Software.com. He leads the site's independent, buyer-focused coverage of ERP, CRM, and other business systems, including vendor-neutral comparisons, pricing analysis, and implementation guidance. Before founding Business-Software.com, Sherman was an executive at Siebel ...

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