Valuation

Where a qualifying charity receives, a bidder may generally deduct only the amount paid above an item's fair market value, and that value should be stated at the time of the auction.

Sponsorship is the easy case

A hay, feed, farrier or veterinary sponsorship returns nothing to the buyer. There is no fair market value to state, and the full amount is generally deductible.

Say that on the item, because it is a genuine advantage of the sponsorship category and most rescues never mention it. It is also an argument for weighting the catalogue toward sponsorship.

The exception is where sponsorship returns a benefit — a plaque, a visit, a photograph package. Then it has a value like anything else, and the token-benefit question is worth asking rather than assuming.

Goods and services

• Tack, feed and equipment — retail
• Farrier, veterinary, dental and bodywork services — the professional's usual rate, which they can tell you
• Training and lessons — the trainer's published rate
• Boarding or transport — the commercial rate
• Donated hay — the delivered market price at the time, which moves and should be dated

The hay point is specific: because the price moves substantially, a value recorded in March is not the value in September. Record the date alongside the figure.

Experiences the rescue provides

A grooming session, a barn tour or a volunteer day has no obvious comparable because nobody sells one. A riding lesson does — the local going rate for an hour of instruction.

Where there is a comparable, use it. Where there is not, describe the experience accurately and say there is no commercial equivalent rather than inventing a number.

Do not value the horses

Obvious but worth stating: a rescue does not put a value on an animal in a fundraising context, and no horse appears in the catalogue in any form.

Where a supporter donates a horse to the rescue, that is a gift of property with its own substantiation rules and a qualified appraisal question, and it belongs to the donor's adviser rather than to the rescue.

Scope, which does more than value

For experiences, the disappointment risk is scoping rather than valuation: duration, people, age limits, what to wear, the weather policy, expiry, booking, and the rescue's right to substitute a horse or reschedule.

Record the basis once

One page: sponsorship carries no stated value, services use the provider's usual rate, goods use retail, hay is dated, and the rescue does not appraise anything. Volunteers turn over and the next committee should not re-derive it.

General information, not legal or veterinary advice. Liability for any activity involving horses, equine activity statutes, insurance and the terms of any adoption or ownership transfer are specific and consequential — your own counsel and insurer decide how any of this applies.