How to Track In-Kind Donations in Your Donor CRM

Track an in-kind gift in your CRM as a gift record with the cash amount set to $0, a separate fair market value field, and a gift type that marks it as non-cash. That one structure keeps donated goods out of your cash totals, lets you report them separately, and gives you the fields you need for acknowledgment and your financials.

The details differ by system. Here's how it works in three common ones, then the fields worth adding no matter what you use.

Why in-kind gifts break a default CRM setup

Most donor databases assume every gift is money. If you log a donated laptop as a $600 gift, your "total raised" jumps by $600 that you can't spend, your average gift gets skewed, and your appeal reports count goods as cash.

The fix is to keep the two apart in the data, so a report can include or exclude in-kind with one filter.

Bloomerang

Bloomerang's help documentation lays out four steps:

1. Enter the donation as you would any regular donation.
2. Set the Amount to 0 so the gift isn't counted as cash.
3. Under Method, select In Kind.
4. Enter the estimated value of the good or service in the Fair Market Value field. For reporting, add an Exclude filter on Method set to In Kind to see only monetary donations. To see in-kind totals, add the in-kind columns to a transaction report.

Salesforce

Cloud4Good's guide to tracking in-kind gifts in Salesforce describes a similar pattern built on Opportunities:

• Track the gift as an Opportunity, as you would other donations.
• Add a new Type or Record Type for in-kind gifts so they can be excluded from roll-up fields like "Total gifts this year." A separate Record Type also lets you use a different sales process (stages) and page layout.
• Use three fields for value: the standard Amount (total dollar value of the gift), a custom Fair Market Value currency field, and a custom formula for Tax-deductible amount (Amount minus Fair market value).
• For donated inventory, create a custom object for donated items and relate it to Contacts, Accounts, and Opportunities. The guide's note on receipts is worth keeping: donors, not the organization, assess the value of their gift and report it to the IRS, so thank-you letters should avoid wording that reads like a tax receipt with a value on it.

Neon CRM

Neon's guidance doesn't prescribe a click path, since Neon supports custom fields. It lists what to capture instead:

• Donor information (name, address, tax ID if applicable).
• Item or service details: quantity, brand, model number, and new or used.
• Donation date, or a date range for ongoing gifts.
• The value and the valuation method (self-report, fair market value, hourly rate, or professional appraisal).
• Intended use: will the nonprofit keep the item or sell or exchange it?
• Gift type: tangible goods or intangible services.
• The campaign or initiative the gift belongs to. Recording the valuation method next to the value is the habit that pays off most. Months later, when someone asks how you arrived at a number, you'll have the answer.

The fields to add in any system

If your CRM isn't one of the three above, build these:

Acknowledgment and reporting

Neon's guidance suggests the acknowledgment include the donor's details, a description of the gift, the date, intended use, and a statement that you're a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, plus a suggestion that the donor consult a tax advisor. Build an in-kind donor segment so thank-you messages can mention the specific item.

For reporting, three views are worth setting up: in-kind donors and how often they give, in-kind value per campaign against the cost of running it, and in-kind as a share of total support.

FAQ

Should I enter in-kind gifts as $0 or at their full value? Use $0 in the cash Amount field and put the dollar figure in a Fair Market Value field. That keeps goods out of your cash totals while still preserving the value.

Do I put the value on the donor's receipt? Generally no. The donor determines the value they report. Your acknowledgment should describe what you received.

Do volunteer hours go in the same field? Track them separately. The Salesforce guide notes volunteer services aren't tax-deductible, so they shouldn't share a deductible-amount field with goods.

Can I log a gift that arrives without a donor name? Log it with the information you have, mark the donor as unknown, and flag it for follow-up. A gift record with no donor still counts for inventory.

Where Givelink fits

Givelink isn't a CRM. It's a way for donors to fund specific items on a nonprofit's public wishlist, and each gift is tied to an item and a donor. That means the details your CRM wants (what was given, by whom, when) exist from the start, so you're logging a record rather than reconstructing one. If you want to see how a wishlist works, take a look at how Givelink works for nonprofits or browse the live directory.