A donor we worked with last year wanted to give a year-end gift larger than usual. He mentioned, almost in passing, that he had some appreciated stock he had been holding for years and wondered whether his church could accept it. The staff said yes, but were not quite sure how. Two months later, the gift had not been completed. The brokerage account they were sent to had been closed. The donor was not annoyed, exactly, but the moment had passed.
That gift would have been roughly four times what he gave in cash that year. The church never knew.
This story repeats more often than ministries realize. Stock, crypto, and other appreciated assets sit in a quiet corner of donor portfolios, and they will only come out if the giving path is clear and the ministry can receive them with confidence.
Why Appreciated Assets Matter More Than They Used To
The donor who gives ten thousand dollars in cash and the donor who gives ten thousand dollars in stock are not equivalent from the donor's side, even if they are from the ministry's. The cash donor gives from after-tax income. The stock donor gives the appreciated asset directly, avoiding the capital gains tax they would have paid if they sold it first, and they take a charitable deduction at the full market value.
For donors who have held investments for a long time, this difference is significant. A donor with stock that has tripled in value can give twenty to thirty percent more, to the same ministry, at the same net cost to themselves, simply by giving the shares rather than selling them first.
The ministry receives the same dollar amount either way. The donor either gives more, or gives the same and feels stewarded better. Both outcomes are good. The bottleneck is almost always that the donor does not know it is possible, or the path to do it feels harder than the gift is worth.
What a Stock Giving Page Should Include
The fix is editorial as much as technical. A clearly labeled "Give Stock or Other Appreciated Assets" link on the main giving page, leading to a short page with three sections.
A two-sentence explanation of why someone might give this way. Plain language. No tax brochure tone. Something like, "Many of our donors give appreciated stock instead of cash because it lets them give more at no additional cost. We are glad to receive gifts this way and the process is straightforward."
The brokerage transfer details the donor's advisor will need. The ministry's brokerage firm, the account number, the DTC number, and the legal name and EIN of the organization. These should be copy-paste friendly. We have seen gifts get lost because a donor's advisor transposed a digit and the ministry had no easy way to confirm the right destination.
A direct line to a named contact who can answer questions and confirm the gift was received. This is the part most ministries skip. A stock transfer arrives in the brokerage account without a donor name attached, and many gifts sit unacknowledged for weeks while the development team tries to figure out who sent them. A named contact who can match the gift to the donor in a day or two prevents this entirely.
For ministries that want to make the process smoother, services like Donate Stock or Cocatalyst handle the entire workflow, including donor intake, broker communication, and matching the gift back to the donor record. They charge a small fee. For most ministries receiving more than two or three stock gifts a year, the fee is worth it.
Crypto Without the Hype
Cryptocurrency giving has matured past the speculative stage of a few years ago. The donors who hold meaningful crypto positions today are usually thoughtful, and they often look for nonprofits that will accept their preferred giving vehicle.
Enabling crypto giving does not require the ministry to hold cryptocurrency. Services like The Giving Block or Engiven accept the asset on behalf of the nonprofit, convert it to cash immediately, and deposit the dollar amount in the ministry's bank account. From the ministry's side, the experience is no different than receiving a stock gift. The donor gets the tax treatment of a non-cash asset donation, the ministry gets cash in hand, and nobody has to learn how a wallet works.
The page describing this should be calm and short. A sentence about why some donors prefer this path, the supported assets, and a clear button to initiate the gift. No graphics of coins. No language that sounds like an exchange.
Other Asset Paths Worth Naming
Beyond stock and crypto, a few other paths deserve a paragraph on the website. Qualified charitable distributions from an IRA, for donors over seventy and a half, are one of the most tax-efficient ways to give. Real estate is rare, but when it happens the gifts are large. Donor-advised funds belong in this conversation too, since the same donor who gives appreciated stock often holds one.
The point is not to list every asset class. It is to signal that the ministry can receive gifts in the forms donors actually hold them, without requiring the donor to translate.
A Quiet Path That Pays Off Slowly
Stock and crypto giving will not transform a small ministry's revenue overnight. The donors who give this way are a small percentage of any list. But the gifts tend to be larger, the donors tend to be older and more committed, and the relationships tend to last for years once the path is established.
Being thoughtful about how donors actually want to give is a form of hospitality. The donor who has been waiting for the ministry to enable stock giving has often been waiting for years. The day the path opens is often the day they give the larger gift they had been holding for the right moment.
We help churches and faith-based nonprofits add these giving paths to their websites in a way that feels grounded rather than technical. If your giving page only accepts credit cards and ACH, and you suspect there are donors quietly waiting for more, reach out through our contact page and we will walk you through the options.