A department is celebrating the opening and dedication of a new multi-faith reading room on campus. Many of the books for this room have been donated to the department over the last 2-3 years, but no formal records or tracking was done as far as date of exchange, listing of books, etc., and we're just learning of it now. However, the coordinator of the space has a listing of ~20 donors, along with a rough estimate of the date, gift and value of their gifts (ie Summer 2019, est. 40 volumes, est. value $500). Most of the gift values are estimated between $100-$500 (as a collection of books), but there are several donors whose total values are estimated at $1k-$5k.
My questions are:
- what is our obligation and/or benefit to record these gifts in kind now?
- Should we record each donor at $1, using the estimated date, description and value in the comments?
- Or do we need to get more specific details from either the coordinator or the donors in terms of dates or titles, in order to be able to record these gifts?
- Or because we're talking about past tax and fiscal years, do we not go back to record them now?
It feels weird to me to issue a thank you receipt to these donors now, but it also feels weird to not record these gifts in our system now that we know about them.
I'd appreciate your wisdom and guidance on what best practice might suggest!
Thanks!