FundSvcs Community

Recently, a donor made a gift of stock to satisfy his recent pledge payment. Although we don't have to value the gift on the receipt due to IRS standards (only providing the stock information as it is gift of "property" essentially), we did provide the overall value we placed on the gift in order for the donor to see their new pledge balance. (

The donor came back to us and said the value should be approx. $400 more than what we had; upon further research, I found that the software our bank uses to value the gift was about $400 less than what Nasdaq showed the value to be on the day of the gift. In other words, the Nasdaq data and what the donor thought the gift value should be matched to the penny - our bank's valuation software is the only place showing a different median price.

In a case like this where there are varying values for the stock, which do we use to get the median price so we can calculate the value of the gift? Is it possible our bank's software is incorrect and we should cross-check it with other values in order to satisfy what the donor thinks the value is?

I have never had this happen before, and I've been processing stock donations for over 10 years - wondering if anyone else has experienced this.

Kate.  I've had this happen on a few occasions over the years.  Most cases, the broker has just provided incorrect information about the date of the transfer and are using incorrect information.  I would look up a price chart and confirm with your Business Office on the day the stock was received into your account.  

The other scenario I've seen, this was with a seven figure gift, is that the donor requests us to us the primary exchange in valuing the stock. The primary exchange does have different values than the composite exchange and is not publicly available.  I had my department issue a receipt with just the number of shares, security name, date received by my organization, with a statement referencing IRS regulations.  

Michael