In-kind donations and compliance
Why donated goods and services count toward disclosure thresholds and caps, and how Together treats their fair value.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act's definition of a gift is not limited to cash. A disposition of property — or the provision of a service — for no consideration or for inadequate consideration is a gift. Donated goods, donated professional services, discounts beyond a supplier's normal terms, and payments well above fair value all fall inside that definition.
Together records these as in-kind donations: donations with a type of in-kind rather than monetary.
They count exactly like cash
An in-kind donation is a first-class donation. Its fair value — what the goods or services would cost on the open market — is stored as the donation amount, and that amount counts toward:
- The annual disclosure threshold under the pre-2027 financial-year regime.
- The disclosure threshold and the per-donor cap under the post-2027 calendar-year regime.
The donation type changes how a donation is presented — a disclosure return separates monetary and in-kind donations, so Together shows an in-kind sub-total — but it never changes how a donation is counted. An in-kind donation is never excluded from a donor's running total.
Fair value is the figure you record
For anything other than cash, record the fair value of what was received — not the cost to the donor, and not nil because no money changed hands. Asking a supplier at the point of delivery what the job would have cost a paying customer is a normal conversation; reconstructing it at year-end is not.
Where in-kind donations come from
- Recorded by hand through Add a donation.
- Synced from NationBuilder, where a donation with an in-kind payment type is classified automatically. See NationBuilder sync.
What to do next
- Record an in-kind donation — Add a donation.
- Understand the regime it counts under — The federal regime.