It's Tax Season! Don't forget about your in-kind church donations.

What are In-Kind Donations?

In-kind donations are donations of goods and services that you made throughout the year, for which you did not receive any reimbursement from the church. For the purpose of taxes and accounting, In-kind donations are church donations that are "not money". Donations of money are easily captured and are always tracked to your giving statement to be shown on your taxes, but it is harder to track the goods and services that get dropped off in the kitchen, the nursery, or arrive in other places to the church outside of the offering plate.

Examples of common In-Kind Donations like coffee and fruit snacks

In-Kind Donations of Goods

It is very common that you may have donated items to the church throughout the course of the year. Here is a list of some common examples of purchased items you may have donated: coffee, fruit snacks, packages of cookies, napkins, paper products, stamps, envelopes, reams of paper, office supplies, janitorial supplies, lightbulbs, or flowers. This list could go on and on... it's the "stuff" that you contributed to the church.

Lawn mowing is a great way to volunteer at the church, or to donate services as an in-kind donation from your lawn mowing business.

In-Kind Donations of Services

To claim a service that you provided to the church as an in-kind donation, you can submit an invoice from your business to the church, with a note that it was an in-kind donation. To help in differentiating between services that can be invoiced and normal volunteer hours, keep in mind that in order to submit an invoice, you should have an active business in which you provide the service to others. Here are two hypothetical examples:

• If you have a landscaping company and you decide to add on our church to your normal weekly route of customers and mow the grass once a week all summer, you could invoice the church for your in-kind lawn mowing donation.

• If you own a cleaning business and you have a route of weekly or monthly homes that you clean, you could submit an invoice to Advent for hours spent cleaning the church.

Claim your in-kind donations on your annual giving statement

How to claim your in-kind donation

If you have receipts of items purchased or invoices of services provided, turn them into the offering plate in an envelope labeled with your name and the cost of the item circled. The financial secretary will record your donation and add it onto your annual giving statement.

If you have any further questions, contact the Advent church office of the financial secretary directly.