Donors Don't Know About the Non-Itemizer Deduction
Nonprofits are facing a challenge in effectively communicating new tax benefits and diverse giving options to their donors. There's a lack of awareness and adoption of strategies like promoting non-itemizer deductions and exploring options like corporate matching and planned giving, hindering fundraising efforts. This highlights a need for better outreach and education within the sector.
SOURCES (60)
“Assuming you are not going to consume all of this donated inventory at once you should debit a donated inventory asset account and credit in kind donation Revenue account for FMV when received. When used debit operational expense account for value used and credit the…”
“"suggest making the 'annual report' something that celebrates donors of every size AND shows the impact of gifts" And includes VOLUNTEER contributions. Time is precious, and the people who donate that time deserve to be celebrated as well.”
“Well from my perspective - a lot are still on (likely much needed) holiday. suggest making the 'annual report' something that celebrates donors of every size AND shows the impact of gifts - then people will actually read it and do amazing things like - call you and tell you they have left a gift in their will to you (yes it happens). And for holiday giving - don't sweat having some amazing theme. Work on asking the RIGHT people for something they can imagine, feel, see, hear, taste,”
“Depending on the tax status of the non-profit, starting this year there is a non-itemized charitable deduction for cash contributions of up to $1k single/$2k MFJ. But other than that, you are correct.”
“Hello, I've been asked a question by a local charity and I am hoping for some help and guidance if possible! This is a 501(c)(3) organization that primarily provides student grants to students at a local university. We have recently had several donors ask about donating funds to be used for social events for the members of the organization, one an appreciation luncheon for members and one being a gala celebrating the hundredth year of the organization. Are there any limitations that we shoul”
“Congratulations! To answer your question: No, I do not donate through DAFs. I find them inefficient.”
“It was the easiest way I could find to donate money under my name and my late husband's name. I created a name for my DAF that has both of our names in it.”
“Did anyone try nonprofit stream before for donation management ? #donations #nonprofit submitted by /u/nam88_toronto [link] [comments]”
“We’re a small nonprofit of 3 people and our social media process is completely manual right now, making it really hard to stay consistent. A friend suggested we try Social Champ because they apparently offer nonprofit pricing. I hadn’t heard of them before, so I wanted to ask here first. We mainly need something that works well for: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Easy scheduling Multiple teammates No extra cost every time we add access for someone What has been working for you? Would love to”
“"drafting personalized donor communications, in particular thank-you letters to monthly donors" How much time does she spend reading those to ensure AI isn't hallucinating, or saying something it shouldn't? And so what's left for Kimberly to do? Is she going to be laid off soon since it sounds like AI is doing most of her job now? I'm not being sarcastic - it really does sound like she's not needed.”
“If it helps, we have been donating $30,000/year to a similar school that 2 of our children attend. I am very grateful for the education our kids are getting, so I don't mind giving back. I think this is above-average, but I don't feel like philanthropy is a place to be frugal. Another thing you can do to help is making it a formal commitment - if you plan to do the above for the next 10 years, you can tell them you're committing to $300,000. That is helpful for their long term planni”
“In Manhattan at least the schools will give guidance. Expected donation is usually only a couple thousand. If they don’t give guidance, they should at the least tell you what they raised last year or in a typical year, so you can work out what the average donation is. Going lower than average is fine, because donation sizes are right skewed.”
“Yes, Donorbox integrates with Double the Donation (360MatchPro) for employer matching, plus an embeddable search widget for your site. Note: it's free to enable on Donorbox, but you pay Double the Donation separately for their service.”
“** asking about existing platform, not which one to use** We are a small but growing nonprofit - around 500 private donors per year and a smattering of grants. I'm Communications/Development/Program Manager in our two person shop. I've been here 10+ years and took us from no CRM (just excel sheets) to Donor Tools, a sometimes clunky and rather old school CRM that had had an API with PayPal. It worked ok. I started a (free) Givebutter account mid year last year. For soliciting and trackin”
“Since I could never ask irl, just want to satisfy my curiosity here. In your experience, do you find that the friends & family who have the most give the most? And I know “having the most” isn’t straightforward…someone could be making a good income but have high ongoing medical costs they have no control over or someone else may have their parents helping them with big life expenses, etc. Maybe it’s the people who spend a lot on themselves, do they end up being generous gifters? Or do you gi”
“Is this legal/ethical? My work does an annual fundraising drive and grant program. It donated $15k to an organization founded and run by one if its board members. submitted by /u/naijetax [link] [comments]”
“and then open a foundation to help the needy. At this stage, I’m a bit lost. Is it better to support one aspect of one cause for example, one grassroots organization or to support several organizations some of which are more established and bigger organizations what is more impactful ? thank you so much for your help, it means so much for me. submitted by /u/Tiny-Sherbert-4389 [link] [comments]”
“I love the concept. But I would concentrate on having the ai figure out what is the best charity for a given cause. It is a difficult problem. You could have the ai agents look at past grants from the charity website as well as tax returns and see how the projects turned out. See which charities have a track record of finding projects that pay off the most. I run a charity and for example, 20 years ago it was thought that immunotherapies couldn’t work in the brain so most charities avoided fundi”
“This is not fully accurate. Businesses can contribute $2500 to their employee’s kids TA. If you are the employee, the business can contribute. The child does not need to be an employee”
“I helped with a nonprofit gala last year and the payment side was way more stressful than expected. We had guests buying auction items in one room, making donations near the stage, and paying for raffle tickets near the entrance. A few card readers were slow, one station had the wrong login, and there weren’t enough working devices near the auction tables. By the end of the night, staff were walking guests across the venue just to complete a payment. A few people said they would come back later”
“If your org is a member of the Council on Foundations you could check this for free: https://cof.org/content/2025-grantmaker-salary-and-benefits-report it may answer your questions. Or, the United Philanthropy Forum has one for PSOs/PIOs too: https://www.unitedphilforum.org/compensationbenefits”
“Program manager (aka grantmaker with a portfolio that roughly maps onto particular funds, geographies, and issue areas). $80,000.”
“There is a local (for-profit) company that runs outdoor events and is offering nonprofits the opportunity to fundraise, but it feels "off" to me. They used to have nonprofits send volunteers to manage the parking lot, and they could solicit donations while taking payments for parking. This year, they announced they are going to have nonprofit volunteers sell soda and water at one of the event's booths, and the nonprofits can keep the proceeds (I don't know if they will also all”
“happy to share! another commenter mentioned corporations often give where they have big employee bases. that's a good point. obviously there will be some corporations that have giving priorities that align with your mission (e.g., LEGO gives to children-related causes, Bank of America gives to financial literacy), but there are also cases where a company has a big office in a city with thousands of employees, so they focus on that city. check what companies have a large presence where your p”
“treat it as sponsorship income and track the related expenses separately for clarity”
“I give money to individuals and major trusted organizations, but I'd also like to find more small charities - the kind that do good work, could really use more donations, but are too small to make top search results or lists of most effective ones. It's hard to find these except for by word of mouth, so that's what I'm looking for here. If you have any such recommendations (especially if you can personally testify to its effectiveness, though ofc that's not required) I'd”
“it's not reimbursement if there's no receipt matching. the sponsor's giving you a lump sum, that's income. you record the full amount as sponsorship revenue and then expense out the travel and product costs separate. the tax man don't care what you told the sponsor you'd spend it on, only what actually hit your books”
“We are a 501(c)(3) in the state of Florida. I'm looking for low or no cost courses that explain "the rules" about certain gift types and how they should be processed - stock, distributions from DAFs, 401Ks, grants, pledges, other types of foundations, all the ones that are sort of weird and/or have rules that just a straight cash or check gift don't come with. I've sent out feelers to nonprofitready and Kellogg to enquire about courses specific to what I'm looking for.”
“Hello! I have opened a new chapter from a national nonprofit organization. My first event is a 5K Fun Run and I need to open registration EXTREMELY SOON (like the goal was June 30th). I am using RunSignUp to collect registration fees but I don't know what bank account to collect it with. I can't send it directly to the national nonprofit because I need to keep some money to offset event venue expenses. Should I use my personal account or just create a generic new account and collect form”
“I am exploring some options for the org I work with to find new donors aligned with our mission. I received an email from Donorspring about receiving some leads, but it seems a little fishy to me. Has anyone worked them? I'm open to other recommendations. We are a small to medium-sized statewide organization in the disability rights space. submitted by /u/Ecstatically_Curious [link] [comments]”
“Hello, We have a small volunteer run non profit organization that is having its first fundraising gala this Summer. Looking for thoughts on what has worked best for those of you who have held in person events and collected donations upon check in and check out at the event. We currently use Wordpress to manage our website and payments are processed by Stripe on the website. What physical device is best for use at the live event to capture credit card payments? We do not have much coding experien”
“Hello, We have a small volunteer run non profit organization that is having its first fundraising gala this Summer. Looking for thoughts on what has worked best for those of you who have held in person events and collected donations upon check in and check out at the event. We currently use Wordpress to manage our website and payments are processed by Stripe on the website. What physical device is best for use at the live event to capture credit card payments? We do not have much coding experien”
“We're a small nonprofit that runs a lot of events. Free monthly mixers (70 to 100 people), members-only events, and professional development events that are free/discounted for members and full price for non-members. Right now we use DonorBox because it's free and lets us set up each event separately. It works fine for registration and payments. The problem is attendance tracking. We can see who attended a single event and export that to Excel. What we can't do is pull up one person”
“We're a small nonprofit that runs a lot of events. Free monthly mixers (70 to 100 people), members-only events, and professional development events that are free/discounted for members and full price for non-members. Right now we use DonorBox because it's free and lets us set up each event separately. It works fine for registration and payments. The problem is attendance tracking. We can see who attended a single event and export that to Excel. What we can't do is pull up one person”
“see from what I think, you want candidates who understand that fundraising isn't just about asking for donations right? it's about wearing multiple hats. In a small org, you might be writing grant proposals in the morning, thanking donors in the afternoon, helping with an event in the evening, and jumping into CRM cleanup somewhere in between. I'd also look for people who can show they've built relationships, stayed organized, and taken ownership of projects, even if those experi”
“For those who manage nonprofit accounts are you seeing an increase in followers or is it steady? Which platforms seem to have brought the most awareness? Has that awareness helped in gaining new partners and donors? submitted by /u/No-Storage-1093 [link] [comments]”
“Curious about folks experience with this, my organization brought in consultants for the first time as part of a campaign. I'm absolutely open to feedback but found the consultants written assessment of my work to have characterized my work in an overly negative light, in spite of several success stories I shared. I understand it's her job to provide constructive feedback but it felt like a litany of things I'm doing wrong. I'm also pretty sure her written assessment was 95% AI.”
“Just as the title says. By small nonprofits, I mean those with annual revenue less than $2 million, or less than 10 full or part time paid staff. submitted by /u/jcravens42 [link] [comments]”
“We're trying to figure out the right approach for tracking revocable bequest commitments in our donor database and getting frustrated with the limits of what our planned giving software actually surfaces. The intent forms come in, the prospect gets coded as a 'planned giving prospect,' and then nothing meaningful happens with that data for cultivation or stewardship until someone manually pulls a report. What I'd really like is to see soft-credit dollars associated with”
“So someone donates $100 worth of goods so the non-profit can re-sell, and the proceeds are under $100 or just a little over, kind of makes the hard work of selling those goods kinda pointlesss.....wouldnt it be better to just donate the $100 and be done with it? Kind of having that issue at a place I do volunteer work for. We get donated stuff and sell at lousy returns...its a lot of work and time for me...when I say something, they say "well its donated"...somehow that doesnt make it”
“Has anyone used or had success with GiveJar? This is TipJar's non-profit giving version. I haven't tried it. Link in comments submitted by /u/lizatethecigarettes [link] [comments]”
“I've recently set up a Square station for my non-profit for donations so people can give whatever amount they want. The idea would be people input an amount, tap their card, and then be on their way. Only problem is the bottom menu is there and so people could conceivably click on another menu, see past transactions of other people, mess with settings, or just mess it up for the next person when they approach the station. Any way to lock it so it stays exclusively on the checkout page throug”
“My nonprofit is a children’s day camp for youth with type one diabetes. Typically we offer a free tshirt to anyone who fundraises more than $100 during our campaigns. I like the idea of having a fundraiser specific shirt moving forward, something that shows off that they’re a donor fundraiser. “I’m a Camp Bluebonnet Buddy” type shirt if that makes sense. Has anyone done this and had success? Do other people like tshirts as much as our community seems to? lol submitted by /u/remo6899”
“My organization holds a gala every other year and we always get donors who purchase tables but then end up sitting at someone else's table. We want to put an option to sponsor a table then give it back so we don't end up having to fill seats at the last minute. Does anyone have verbiage they've used on pledge forms or benefits in similar situations? submitted by /u/catbrew45 [link] [comments]”
“I was asked by management if we're doing anything for this 250th anniversary Giving Day initiative. Honestly, I had not heard of it. We may just do a Giving 4th-branded social media campaign with reminder to give. Wondering if this was on others' radar. submitted by /u/rosekred [link] [comments]”
“I work for a medium-sized Development Team (5 people) and we are debating if we should change our acknowledgment process. I wanted to see if anyone had insight on their process so it is accurate, but also as quick as possible. Here's some detail: Current Structure: Currently, we book our gifts into our CRM and then export that data out to use in a mail merge word doc. We have tailored letters depending on the gift type/event/amount/etc. For larger/special gifts we would often send a personal”
“One of the most frustrating ongoing battles in nonprofit work is justifying operational costs to donors who've been conditioned to think every dollar should go directly to programs. The overhead myth is well documented, but it keeps coming up in conversations with major donors, board members, and grant funders. I'm curious how people in this community actually handle these conversations in practice. Do you have a goto framework or talking points that have worked? Do you bring it up proac”
“I'm on the board of a very small 501(c)(3) and we're looking into platforms to hold an online auction as a fundraiser. We likely won't have much of a margin for any unexpected costs, so I'm mainly curious if anyone ran into costs besides the platform fee and costs from the payment processor. submitted by /u/boxofsquirrels [link] [comments]”
“This comes up constantly in our organization and I imagine many of you deal with it too. We have donors, including some major ones, who explicitly say they only want their gifts going toward direct programs and services. No admin, no overhead, no fundraising costs. It sounds reasonable on the surface but creates real strain when you're trying to keep the lights on and retain good staff. We've tried explaining the overhead myth and sharing resources like the Overhead Myth campaign, but it”
“We're a newly established nonprofit and last week set up a Benevity account. Someone told us they donated the same day we set up the account (I think I was still in the process of adding our bank information). So far we're not seeing any donations in our portal. It sounds like it could take a month or two for the funds to actually hit our bank account, but how long does it take to see it in the portal after someone makes a donation? submitted by /u/Status-Biscotti [link]  ”
“Hello! I work for a smaller undergraduate institution that gets around 100 gifts a week (or lower, like right now in summer). I'm currently writing a proposal to change our acknowledgement system. Currently, all constituents are by default marked to receive physical mail. The only way to switch to email is to email our department (which of course, almost no one does). These are created (thank you mail merge), signed by our AVP/VP depending on amount. It is not uncommon to send upwards of 900”
“My local YMCA does this for their annual fund. They make all the staff get ‘teams’ (friends, family, members) to make donations. When I was serving on their board, I was appalled at the practice and told them that it was the boards responsibility to do that work with the development professionals. I ended up resigning my position and terminating my membership.”
“It depends. Basically - do your donors care? Do you regularly hear thank you for the lovely note? Are these notes already acting as stewardship? Often, we fundraisers forget to think about the audience. Personally, I automate the letters as much as possible and then leave space for personalized notes.”
“If I get something mailed to me and I like the organization ( and it has a reply form and envelope that sits on my counter staring at me) I give. Its the only way I am reminded to give actually.”
“Higher ed, so it might be different from other nonprofits. Essentially we have big appeals (we call them campaigns — just multiple asks) four times a year: a winter giving day/week, fall appeal, FY end, and CY end. Smaller appeals with more targeted audiences are scattered around the year. I think right now we're treating these broad-based appeals as lead-generating opportunities for frontline fundraisers to discover potential prospects, increase touchpoints, and funnel some people into the”