Gift Acceptance Policy (Animal-Welfare Edition)
A board-ready gift acceptance policy tailored to the unusual gifts animal organizations receive: live animals and herds, working farms and real property with care obligations, vehicles, restricted and memorial gifts, crypto, and planned-gift instruments.
Draft: pending review
This starter document is signed off by Nonprofit counsel + CPA + CFRE before it ships. The guardrails below define that review.
What’s inside
- Accept/review/decline matrix by asset type, including live animals, real estate with livestock, vehicles, securities, crypto, in-kind
- Restricted-gift and naming-gift review thresholds and gift-agreement templates
- Environmental-review and carrying-cost checklist for real property and animal-bearing gifts
- Gift-decline and gift-return procedures with board/committee escalation
Legal & ethical guardrails
The sector-specific compliance points this document must honor.
- Charitable substantiation: the donor obtains qualified appraisals; the organization does not assign values on receipts
- Restricted and planned gifts: require written gift agreements and confirm the org can honor restrictions before acceptance
- Non-cash and business-related gifts may raise unrelated-business-income and quid-pro-quo issues; route to finance/tax review
- Accepting live animals or animal-bearing property creates immediate welfare and liability obligations; require operational-capacity sign-off
Held for professional review.
The native DOCX and full working text ship only after sign-off by Nonprofit counsel + CPA + CFRE on this exact version. The summary and review requirements remain visible in the meantime.
Not legal advice. Not legal, tax, or accounting advice. The Fundraising Co. provides educational fundraising materials and is not a law firm; nothing here creates an attorney–client relationship or substitutes for advice from professionals licensed in your jurisdiction. Laws and IRS rules vary by state and change over time. Review every document with qualified counsel before use.