“The aging baby boomers have grown their businesses and many are looking to sell” and give part of their interests to charity, says Karla D’Alleva Valas, managing director of the complex asset group at Fidelity Charitable, a large donor-advised fund. In the first half of 2014, donations of complex assets to Fidelity Charitable more than doubled, to $100 million, compared with the same period a year earlier.

Depending on the type of asset, the easiest route to donate illiquid property is through a donor-advised fund or a community foundation that has expertise in accepting donations of complex assets, including handling the legal review of documents and IRS reporting. “We receive the asset, do the compliance and get it sold,” says Bryan Clontz, president of Jacksonville, Fla., consulting firm Charitable Solutions, which is the administrator of the Dechomai Foundation, a donor-advised fund. Say you have $12 million in shares in a small business that you own and you want to donate $4 million worth of the shares to a donor-advised fund. For the year of the donation, you will get a charitable tax deduction for the shares’ fair market value. The donor-advised fund sells the donated shares you have given it, and you direct how the proceeds will be distributed to your favorite charities.

The donor still gets the tax break based on the fair market value at the time of the donation, but it becomes the charity’s problem to manage and sell the property. A donor can generally deduct the full fair market value of the artwork if the charity uses it for its charitable purpose, such as a museum exhibiting a donated painting.