Donations to Non-Profit Org

I am the Director of a non-profit organization. Several months ago, an officer of the Board passed away and the family noted in the obituary that “in lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to this program (indicated name in obituary) in his memory. The family has indicated that they are going to present me with a check. I was recently approached by an individual that donated to this organization and mentioned that they didn’t receive an acknowledgement but the check was recently cashed. After further checking, I found out the check was cashed with a rubber stamp on the back saying it’s credited to a payee at such and such a bank. My question is…can someone from the family cash the check if made out to another organization? If these individuals use this donation as a tax write off, shouldn’t the organization be aware of the amount donated for IRS purposes? If you have any information that would be helpful in this situation, please let me know. Thank you!

[annjd]

They normally cannot cash that. Only the firm or person named as payee on the check can legally cash it.

It is check fraud otherwise.

Would the financial institution also be held accountable, in addition to the person that cashed these checks?

[msg]

Not unless they did something wrong or knew what happened.

If the person that cashed these checks was not the payee or organization and the bank cashed the checks, wouldn't the bank need to make restitution to the organization that the checks were written out to?