Frequently Asked Questions For Donors

It takes less than 10 minutes to register and execute your first stock gift with DonateStock. Once registered, it only takes 1-2 minutes to initiate subsequent stock gifts. Once submitted, it generally takes 2-5 business days for the shares to be transferred from your account to the nonprofit’s account (via DTC transfer). This is highly dependent on how long it takes the donor’s brokerage to initiate the transfer. Payments to nonprofits take place on the 1st and 15th of each month. You may track the status of your donation in your donor portal .

Yes. If you do not want to be publicly listed as a donor, but still known to the nonprofit, you may note this in the special instructions when making the donation.

Yes. If you do not want the nonprofit to know your identity, you can check “Make my gift anonymous” on the donation confirmation page.

Our role varies depending on whether the nonprofit recipient wants to receive stock or cash. If they opt to receive stock, we facilitate the transfer of stock from the donor’s account directly to the nonprofit’s account. Most nonprofits prefer that we manage the process of selling the stock, reconciling the gift, and transferring the cash to the nonprofit’s bank account. This is done by DonateStock Charitable , a 501c3 formed to facilitate stock gifts for nonprofits that either do not have a brokerage or prefer to outsource the back-end processing.

There is no cost to donors, and it’s free for nonprofits to register and onboard with DonateStock. We charge the receiving nonprofit a small transaction fee (about half of what they pay for credit card transactions) while capping fees on large gifts.

You can donate stock to more than 1 million nonprofits via dedicated stock gifting pages on Donatestock.com. If the nonprofit is in good standing with the IRS you should find them on our site. That said, the IRS data is not perfect, so there are cases where valid organizations are not listed. If you can’t find yours, please suggest a Nonprofit page.

• Privately held stocks – Privately held stocks are not registered and cannot be freely traded. DonateStock currently only accepts publicly-traded stock donations.
• Penny stocks (priced under $5.00) are thinly-traded and highly volatile.
• Fractional shares: as of today, we cannot receive and/or process fractional shares of stock.

Yes. We can process donations from most mutual funds, but they often take longer to clear.

We do not process Cryptocurrency donations, but we work with companies that do.

For gifts greater than $25,000, a customer success representative will contact you to confirm the gift as an added security measure. On your behalf, we will then submit the transfer authorization to your brokerage and notify the nonprofit. Your brokerage will then transfer the shares to the nonprofit’s account or DonateStock Charitable (501c3) where the shares will be sold, and the proceeds disbursed to the recipient. We’ll send you a confirmation email and update your donor dashboard when the process begins and again when it is complete.

When you make the donation through our platform, we will inform the nonprofit via email and in their dashboard.

If the nonprofit opted to receive stock, they will send you a tax receipt. If the nonprofit elected for us to convert the stock to cash and issue payment to them, you will receive a receipt from DonateStock Charitable benefiting the nonprofit you supported. Receipts can be downloaded from your donor dashboard.

If you are 70 ½ years of age or older you may be able to donate stock from a traditional IRA but there are strict requirements as noted here: Can I Use Money From My IRA to Donate to Charity? Please ask your CPA for a final determination of how your donation will be handled.

All stock gifts are irrevocable. Once the instructions are sent to your broker, we cannot modify the transfer request.

The status of each transaction is shown in your Donor dashboard. Simply log in to view it. It usually takes 5 business days for the shares to be transferred from your account to the nonprofit’s account via DTC transfer. Expect delays during busy times - such as end of year. The timeline is highly dependent on how long it takes your brokerage to initiate the transfer. Please check your brokerage account to see if the shares were transferred. If they were transferred more than 5 days ago and have not been marked as “received” in your dashboard, please contact us and we will investigate.

Sometimes this happens when, for example, an organization has closed, they are no longer in good standing with the IRS, or we fail to reach anyone within the organization to accept it. If this happens we will contact you and ask you to recommend another one of our 1 million+ organizations.

No, during the donation experience you will be asked your preferred account method, for example FIFO (first in first out) is the most commonly used method when submitting a donation on our platform. Additional options are available for you as well, such as LIFO (last in first out) or custom where you will have to provide the purchase date and your purchase price per share. This ensures that your brokerage transfers shares from the correct lot.

Our platform is secure and your information will not be shared. Please see our security statement and privacy policy for details. Also, please note we will not ask for your brokerage login credentials - we just need the same information that would appear on a check to process your stock gift.

Yes, we work with financial advisors everyday and have created a streamlined process to provide them with the information they need to initiate a gift on your behalf. Please direct them to the nonprofit’s stock gifting page and ask them to contact us at [email protected] if they have any questions.

If you have a Financial Advisor or Wealth Manager, it is always a good idea to inform them, we will send them a charitable transfer request on your behalf. Please verify their email, phone and fax number in your DonateStock account setup to expedite the process.

No. Feel free to donate as much as you would like to as many worthy causes as you can. Stock donated must be in whole numbers, no fractional gifting and at least one whole share.

Yes, please contact our customer success team for your major gift needs. Our customer success team can structure your gift to support one charity or multiple causes.

We are not financial advisors and we recommend you consult with a tax professional. But for context, many will reference the “mailbox” rule derived from IRS Reg. 1.170A-1(b) which states that if a check or stock certificate is mailed to a donee, and that gift is irrevocable, the gift is occurred on the date of mailing. When you make a stock gift through DonateStock, you will receive a timestamped confirmation via email. For this reason, many donors make charitable stock gifts through DonateStock on December 31.

Find the nonprofit you want to support by searching our database of 501c3 organizations in good standing with the IRS. Then just click “Donate Stock” on their page and follow the registration steps. If you prefer to register first, please sign up here!

Sign into your DonateStock account here.

Reset your password here or contact us here.

After logging in, select “My Donations” from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of your screen.

If the nonprofit opted to receive stock, they will send you a tax receipt. If the nonprofit elected for us to convert the stock to cash and issue payment to them, you will receive a receipt from DonateStock Charitable benefiting the nonprofit you supported. Receipts can be downloaded from your donor dashboard.