This has just come up at UC Berkeley, and I need to establish a standard for how to record (or not record) these in our CRM. A volunteer board member incurred travel expenses to come to Berkeley for a donor visit and other function related to their service on the board. They provided us with a letter to sign, acknowledging that these are unreimbursed expenses and therefore can be considered a charitable donation.
The board member is not necessarily seeking hard or soft credit as recognition (equivalent to the value of the receipts), but they want the form for substantiation for the IRS. However, it would seem incongruous to issue the letter without recording the transaction in the CRM.
I'm wary of creating new mountains of paperwork and small-value GIK transaction opportunities for the hundreds of volunteers who incur direct costs for local travel or lodging.
Is everyone recording an actual GIK in their system whenever this comes up?
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Matt Weaver
University of California, Berkeley
mdweaver@BERKELEY.EDU------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 05-20-2026 08:58 AM
From: Rebecca Swartz
Subject: Receipts for GIK vs, Unreimbursed Expenses
Hello.
To confirm what Johnyelle said, that is how we handle these at UNC-Chapel Hill. No amount on receipt, but we do include the amount in our database for recognition (soft) credit.
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Rebecca Swartz (she/her)
Director of Gift & Data Management
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
rebecca.swartz@unc.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2026 02:45 PM
From: Johnyelle Lee
Subject: Receipts for GIK vs, Unreimbursed Expenses
Hello. At one of my previous institutions, we labeled these types of transactions as "bill paid on behalf of" and treated them as gifts-in-kind with no value listed on the receipt. Karen, my interpretation of unreimbursed expenses aligns with yours. I hope that is helpful.
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Johnyelle Lee
Senior Director of Advancement Services
Elizabeth City State University
jylee@ecsu.edu