According to Freewill’s 2025 Stock Giving Report, donors gave over $59 billion in stock donations over just six years. Whether a supporter just offered you shares of stock or you are actively looking to diversify your revenue streams, accepting non-cash assets is a massive opportunity for your nonprofit. But what are the actual logistics required to accept stock donations?
Your nonprofit will need to open a brokerage account, create an investment policy, and provide clear transfer instructions to donors. This guide will walk you through that process and more. You will learn the difference between traditional and modern stock donation processes, the key tax benefits to share with your donors, and how to make securities a lasting part of your fundraising strategy.
Stock giving brings unique benefits and transformative impact. Let's explore how to accept stock donations and fuel your nonprofit's growth!
Key takeaways
- Stock gifts fuel faster growth. The average stock donation is more than $5,000, and nonprofits that accept non-cash assets grow six times faster than those that only accept cash.
- Donors get greater tax benefits. Giving appreciated stock allows donors to bypass capital gains taxes while still claiming a charitable deduction for the full fair market value of the shares.
- The barrier to entry is low. To start accepting stock, your organization simply needs a brokerage account, an investment/liquidation policy, and clear Depository Trust Company (DTC) instructions for transfers.
- Avoid publishing your DTC info publicly. Using a gated landing page or a dedicated stock giving tool prevents anonymous donations, protects your financial data, and automates donor stewardship.
Accepting stock donations as a nonprofit: FAQ
Navigating non-cash gifts often brings up questions for both nonprofit teams and their donors. Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions about accepting, processing, and acknowledging stock donations:
What types of stocks can be donated to nonprofits?
There are three types of stock that can be donated to nonprofits:
- Publicly-traded stocks: These are the most frequently donated non-cash assets because they’re widely owned and have publicly known market prices.
- Privately-held stocks: These aren't traded on public markets and require independent appraisals to determine their fair market dollar values.
- Mutual funds: These risk-mitigating bundled stocks are a popular option among everyday traders and investors.
Why should nonprofits accept stock donations?
Accepting stock donations allows nonprofits to secure significantly larger contributions and tap into the vast majority of donor wealth held outside their standard bank accounts.
Prioritizing stock and non-cash gifts benefits your organization in a few critical ways:
- You will secure larger gifts. The average stock donation is worth more than $5,000, which is typically much larger than everyday cash contributions.
- You can unlock untapped wealth. The U.S. Census estimates that 97-99% of wealth is held in non-cash assets. Donors are often more comfortable making major gifts from investment gains than from their disposable income.
- Your organization will grow faster. Nonprofits that actively encourage and accept non-cash assets grow six times faster and display revenue growth 66% higher than organizations that only accept cash.
You can fund long-term initiatives. Because stock gifts act as major gifts, they are among the most effective ways to fund large strategic goals or build an endowment that ensures financial stability in perpetuity.
How do donors benefit from donating stock?
Donating appreciated stock provides donors with significant, compounding tax advantages that allow them to maximize both their wealth and their philanthropic impact.
When donors give stock directly to a nonprofit, they experience three major financial benefits:
- Avoid capital gains taxes. If a donor sells an appreciated stock to donate cash, they must pay capital gains and state income taxes on the profit. Donating the stock directly bypasses these taxes entirely.
- Claim a larger charitable deduction. Donors can claim a charitable tax deduction for the full fair market value of the stock at the time of donation, rather than just what they originally paid for it.
- Bypass the wash-sale rule. Giving stock exempts donors from the IRS wash-sale rule. This means a donor can donate highly appreciated shares and immediately repurchase the exact same stock. This allows them to support your mission, maintain their portfolio composition, and reset their shares at a higher cost-basis.
Helpful resources to share with prospects
Educate your donors on these tax benefits with these shareable guides. These resources help simplify the technical "how-to" of the donation process and provide the clarity your prospects need to move forward with confidence.
- Donating stock to charity: A step-by-step guide for donors
- How to deduct appreciated stock donations from taxes
- 7 ways to avoid capital gains tax on stocks for any investor
How do you acknowledge a stock gift to charity?
When your nonprofit receives a stock donation, send a thank-you letter and a separate IRS-compliant tax receipt. Be sure to acknowledge the gift of stock and offer a genuine thank-you in each of these. Specifically for receipts, be sure to include the following:
- The donor's name
- Date of the contribution
- Description of the contribution, such as the number of shares, name of the stock, and ticker symbol
- An impact statement, letting the donor know how their stock donation will support your mission
- A statement confirming your nonprofit didn't provide goods or services in return for the donation
- Your organization's information (e.g., legal name, EIN, etc.)
Do not include the value of the stock—it's the donor’s responsibility to determine that based on fair market value.
Sending sufficient tax documents and a thoughtful thank-you note will pave the path for future gifts, whether in the form of stock, cash, or other assets.
What your nonprofit needs to accept stock donations
Accepting gifts of stock doesn't require a massive lift, but it does take a few key tools and resources to get started. Let's explore what your nonprofit needs to run a stock donation program efficiently, as well as what your donors will need to initiate their gifts.
When both sides have the right information and tools, the process becomes smoother, faster, and far more donor-friendly.
What your nonprofit needs
To successfully accept and process stock donations, your organization needs a few core operational essentials:
- A stock brokerage account to receive and manage the shares, or a dedicated stock giving tool that automatically liquidates gifts upon receipt
- A gift acceptance and investment policy to define exactly how and when donated shares should be liquidated
- Clear transfer instructions that outline your organization's DTC ID and clearing numbers to share securely with donors
- A CRM or donor database to record the exact details of the gift, prevent anonymity, and manage donor stewardship
- Marketing collateral to actively educate your existing supporters on the tax benefits of giving stock donations
What your stock donors need
For a donor to successfully authorize and transfer a gift of stock to your organization, they require:
- Transfer authorization forms, such as a specific charitable gift transfer or letter of authorization form provided by their personal stockbroker
- Your nonprofit’s brokerage details, including your brokerage firm's name, your organization's account number, and your DTC ID and clearing numbers
Historically, nonprofits simply published their DTC information on their website and waited for gifts to arrive. However, this passive method places the burden of tracking down forms and initiating the transfer entirely on the donor.
Today’s supporters expect a frictionless giving experience. Relying on this traditional method often leads to abandoned transfers, lost revenue, and anonymous gifts that you cannot steward. Use modern tools to improve the experience, and you’ll secure more gifts of stock!
The traditional way to accept stock gifts
Traditionally, nonprofits receive gifts of stock through a simple but passive process that can be summed up as Publish, Promote, and Wait:
- Publish your nonprofit’s identifying brokerage and DTC information on your website for donors to use on forms to initiate transactions.
- Promote stock giving and its benefits to your donors, directing them to your published information if interested in making a gift.
- Wait to receive stock gifts through your brokerage account.
The drawbacks of this method of accepting stock donations
These three core steps remain the foundation of all nonprofit stock donation processes, but approaching them passively brings several major drawbacks.
First, a hands-off stock fundraising method in which you publish information and ask interested donors to navigate forms on their own creates a poor donor experience.
Openly publishing this information without some kind of wall or lead capture page in place can also create security risks, as financial information scraped online can enable fraud.
More importantly for the long-term sustainability of your stock fundraising, stock gifts received this way are usually reported anonymously. Anonymous gifts mean that you can’t thank or actively build relationships with stock donors, greatly complicating follow-up and stewardship.
Plus, if your nonprofit prefers to immediately liquidate stock gifts (recommended to ensure maximum value), their impact will be delayed and their accounting will be complex. You’ll need to direct your broker to liquidate received gifts, potentially pay fees, and then wait for the net cash proceeds to transfer.
How to accept stock donations the modern way
The modern approach to stock fundraising replaces passive information-sharing with an intentional, secure, and automated donor journey. Here’s how the modern process works at a glance:
- Adopt a stock giving tool. Use a dedicated platform like FreeWill to manage the logistics, automate workflows, and improve the donor experience.
- Gate your DTC information. Require donors to complete a short form before revealing your transfer instructions, so you know exactly who is making a gift.
- Direct donors to a custom landing page. Drive supporters to a central, educational page where they can easily initiate their stock transfer online.
- Liquidate and acknowledge. Automatically liquidate the received shares to protect their value and immediately send an IRS-compliant tax receipt and thank-you note.
Let’s take a closer look at these steps.
1. Use a stock giving tool to facilitate the process.
Using a platform designed specifically for nonprofit stock donations is the easiest way to improve the donor experience and streamline your internal operations.
Dedicated stock giving tools (like FreeWill) solve the logistical challenges of traditional stock fundraising by allowing your nonprofit to:
- Create a lead-capture page. Gate your transfer information so you always know exactly who is initiating a gift, completely eliminating the problem of anonymous donors.
- Automate donor stewardship. Instantly deliver transfer instructions to the donor and automatically issue IRS-compliant tax receipts once the gift is processed.
- Liquidate gifts immediately. Automatically sell received stock gifts to protect their value from market fluctuations, allowing you to put the funds to work for your mission faster.
While a dedicated tool isn't strictly required to accept stock, it removes the heavy lifting of data collection and logistics. If you build the process manually, you can still follow the steps below to create a more intentional fundraising journey.
2. Publish an information-capture page to gate the information and automate the giving process.
Publish a new data capture page on your website where donors can indicate their interest in giving stock before receiving your information and initiating a transfer. Use it to reinforce your asks and explain why donors should donate stock, the potential tax benefits, and how these gifts fuel your mission. Gating the nonprofit stock donation process this way accomplishes two goals:
- It adds a level of protection to your nonprofit’s identifying financial information.
- It ensures that you’ll know who gave which stock gifts and when, allowing you to thank donors and bypass the anonymity problem of the traditional process.
Depending on which stock giving tool you use, this step may look slightly different. Follow your provider’s guidance to ensure your form is configured correctly. You may also not use a stock giving tool at all—the key is simply to add a gated page into the process.
If you’re building this page yourself, a simple form that collects your donor’s name and contact info, brokerage information, type and name of stock, intended donation date, and the value/number of shares to be donated will suffice.
Note: Donors can only receive a charitable tax deduction for the fair market value of their donated shares if they’ve owned them for over a year. If they were held for less than a year, the deduction is instead limited to the cost-basis, or what they paid for the stock. If a donor is giving private stock, they must have the shares appraised by a broker or financial institution to determine the fair market value.
3. Direct donors to your nonprofit stock donation page.
As you promote your stock giving option in marketing materials and conversations, direct donors and prospects straight to your new stock giving page. Here, they’ll input their information and begin the transfer process.
To let donors know your nonprofit accepts stock donations, try the following strategies:
- Add a call-to-action on your Ways to Give page that links to your stock donation page.
- Include a stock giving button or banner on your homepage during year-end or campaign pushes.
- Send dedicated emails or post social media content explaining the benefits of donating stock.
- Mention the stock giving option in your gift acknowledgment emails or donor newsletters.
- Equip your gift officers with quick links and talking points to share during calls and meetings.
Always include a clear link to your nonprofit stock donation page. The fewer clicks between your donor and the gift, the better.
4. Automatically send donors the transfer instructions for their brokerage.
Donors visit your nonprofit stock donation page and complete your form. At this point, your stock giving tool should provide donors with (or send them directly to) their broker’s appropriate transfer authorization form for a charitable gift of stock. Donors will input your organization’s provided information, confirm details of the gift, and submit the transaction.
If you’re not using a dedicated stock giving tool, you should instead direct users who’ve completed your form to an instruction page that provides next steps (submit your broker’s appropriate transfer form, etc.) and your DTC information. You may also automate emails that provide these instructions upon completion of your form.
You should then be notified of the gift and its details for record-keeping and stewardship purposes.
Once processed, your received shares can be immediately liquidated via your stock giving tool or routed to your brokerage if you prefer to hold them. Finally, send donors receipts for their gifts and messages of thanks!
Benefits of a modern approach to accepting stock gifts
Moving away from passive information-sharing to a guided, gated process brings several major advantages to your nonprofit:
- A frictionless donor experience: Instead of forcing supporters to hunt down the right forms, the modern approach automatically equips them with the exact transfer instructions and broker forms they need to complete the gift easily.
- Increased financial security: Gating your organization's sensitive brokerage and DTC information behind a lead-capture form protects your data from online scraping and reduces the risk of fraud.
- Elimination of anonymous gifts: By capturing the donor's contact details before they initiate the transfer, you guarantee your team knows exactly who made the gift, allowing you to accurately issue tax receipts and actively steward the relationship.
- Sustainable revenue growth: When the process is automated and simple for your internal team to manage, it becomes much easier to make stock fundraising a consistent, long-term priority.
Example process: Stock gifts in action
Here’s an example of a modern, safe stock giving process from Reasons to Believe. Take a look at the donor journey they created using FreeWill.
First, donors encounter a discussion of the benefits of stock giving and a call to action on the organization’s Ways to Give page:
From here, users are directed to the organization’s custom stock giving page, hosted by FreeWill and full of all the information prospective donors will need to make their decision:
When ready to make a gift, users are presented with three options. The first and most prominent option is initiating a stock gift online, which will prompt the donor to complete a form.
The next option is to go straight to the organization’s transfer information. This information is still important to share, but by not leading with it, the organization reduces the chances that a new donor will unknowingly give anonymously. The third option is for financial advisors to initiate a gift on behalf of a client.
To give stock online, users are then guided through a quick form that collects key information about them and their gift:
Once users submit this form, they’ll receive custom instructions for initiating a gift with their broker and the organization’s DTC information. The organization receives all the data it needs to steward and account for the gift, and the entire process runs more smoothly on both sides.
How to launch and sustain a stock giving program
Let’s say you’ve decided to start accepting stock donations and make it a key fundraising priority for your nonprofit—excellent! To build the modern stock donation process into a sustained fundraising program, you should follow these steps:
1. Determine who will oversee the stock giving program.
Most organizations designate someone on their finance or accounting team to finalize the receipt of gifts from the broker or stock giving tool and then notify the development team to follow up with the donor. However, nonprofits of all sizes and bandwidths can delegate responsibility in any way that makes the most sense—the key is simply to assign clear ownership.
2. Establish stock donation acceptance and investment policies.
Create policies that specifically lay out the process and guidelines by which stocks will be accepted as donations and liquidated. This example policy covers all of the essentials, including:
- Timeframes for liquidation
- Regular account audits
- The status of stock proceeds as restricted or unrestricted
Note that it is standard practice for nonprofits to implement a same-day liquidation policy for gifts of stocks in order to minimize the risk of loss of value. With a stock giving tool like FreeWill, you can set liquidation as a default action.
3. Open a brokerage account if needed.
To accept gifts of stock, you’ll need to open a brokerage account or work with a fundraising tool that serves as a brokerage. Nonprofits usually receive discounted brokerage fees from providers like Schwab and Fidelity Charitable.
4. Set up your nonprofit’s stock donation tool.
As explained above, dedicated tools designed to improve the donor experience and gather the information your nonprofit needs will help you raise more. For the best results, use a platform like FreeWill to simplify and automate the stock fundraising process.
5. Create a stock giving page on your website
See Step 2 of the modern stock fundraising process above. This page should:
- Explain the benefits of stock gifts
- Collect essential donor and gift information
- Provide donors with the forms and information they need to initiate a charitable transfer
6. Automate tax receipts.
Depending on your stock giving tool, this process may look different for each organization. Confirm that donors will receive receipts that include all the necessary information to claim tax deductions in a timely manner.
Don’t skip this step—receipts are required for gifts valued over $250, and tax deductions are a primary motivator for stock gifts in the first place.
7. Educate your team about stock giving.
Ensure your fundraisers can confidently speak about the benefits of donating stock and how your donation process works. Double-check that all involved teams (including those in finance/accounting) understand their responsibilities when gifts are received.
8. Promote your stock giving program.
Let donors know about your new giving option! Promote your stock giving page through emails, social media posts, and newsletter highlights.
Target segments of your donor base (typically wealthier donors or those who work for major corporations) with more tailored communications asking them to consider a stock gift and to reach out with any questions. See FreeWill’s Stock Giving Report for a closer look at common stock donor demographics.
9. Incorporate stock gifts into your development conversations.
Your fundraisers should now be well-equipped to make stock fundraising a sustained priority. Offer stock giving as one of several options—ideally including other non-cash giving methods like DAF grants and QCDs.
10. Track and steward all stock donors.
All stock donation information should flow to your CRM or database for storage and analysis. Remember that stock donations have the potential to become recurring and quite valuable gifts, so stewardship is crucial.
Continue sending stewardship communications to keep these donors engaged and encourage them to make another gift of stock—especially before the end of the year for tax filing purposes!
Start accepting stock donations to your nonprofit today.
It’s simple—build a more intentional process, and raise more money through stock gifts.
FreeWill makes accepting stock donations easy and safe for both your nonprofit and your donors. We give you the online tools you need to promote and accept gifts of stock, smoothly walk your donors through the process, and actively manage your growing revenue stream.
Learn more about our Stock Giving tool and reach out with any questions. We can’t wait to help you unlock transformative gifts to drive your mission forward.
If you want to learn more about non-cash giving, keep exploring with these resources from the FreeWill team:
- Planned giving: A nonprofit's guide to growing legacy gifts
- How to accept crypto donations: Complete nonprofit guide
- DAFs 101: Introduction and how-to guide for nonprofits
