Donation receipt template nonprofits can copy

A donation receipt needs four things to satisfy IRS rules: the organization’s name, the donor’s name, the gift amount and date, and a statement about what the donor received in exchange, if anything. Below is a donation receipt template nonprofits can copy today, plus the two IRS rules that decide what has to be on it.

Every development director has lived this: the year-end gifts come in over one messy week, the automatic emails go out, and three months later a donor calls asking for a receipt with the right wording on it. Losing track of who got what costs trust, and our post on what a thank-you letter adds beyond the receipt covers that side of the relationship.

This post gives you a donation receipt template for a single gift and one for a year-end giving summary, the IRS rules each has to follow, and a way to stop writing a new one from scratch every December.

Key Takeaways
– A donation receipt needs the organization’s name, the donor’s name, the gift amount and date, and a statement on goods or services received in exchange.
– The IRS requires a written acknowledgment for any single contribution of $250 or more; many nonprofits send one for every gift anyway.
– If a donor received something back, such as a dinner or a ticket, the receipt has to state its value and say only the remaining amount is deductible.
– A donation receipt and a thank-you letter do different jobs: the receipt proves the gift for tax purposes, and the letter says thank you.
– A year-end giving summary replaces a dozen separate receipts with one document a donor can hand to their accountant.

What a donation receipt has to include

A donation receipt is the document a nonprofit gives a donor to confirm a gift and support the donor’s own tax records. The IRS requires a written acknowledgment for any single contribution of $250 or more, and it has to include:

1. The organization’s legal name.
2. The donor’s name.
3. The amount of a cash gift, or a description, not a dollar value, of a non-cash gift.
4. The date the gift was received.
5. A statement that no goods or services were provided in exchange, or, if something was provided, a description and a good-faith estimate of its value.

IRS Publication 1771 lays out these content requirements in full, including how to describe a non-cash gift. Below $250, the IRS does not require a written acknowledgment, but most nonprofits send a receipt for every gift anyway. It costs nothing once the template exists, and it is the easiest way to show a donor their own record is accurate.

A donation receipt template you can copy

Start with the single-gift version. It works for an online donation, a check, or a gift dropped off at an event:

[Organization legal name]
[Organization address]

Date: [date gift received]

Dear [donor name],

Thank you for your generous contribution of [$amount], received on [date]. No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution, and it is deductible to the extent allowed by law.

If something was provided in exchange, use this line instead: In exchange for this contribution, you received [description]. The good-faith estimate of its value is [$amount]. The deductible portion of your gift is [$amount].

[Organization name] is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

[Name], [Role]
[Phone number or email]

For a non-cash gift, describe the item instead of assigning it a value: “a laptop computer in working condition” rather than “a $400 laptop.” The donor sets the value for their own return, not the organization.

For donors who give more than once a year, a year-end giving summary replaces a dozen separate receipts with one document:

[Organization legal name]

Giving summary for [donor name], [tax year]

Total contributions: [$amount]. No goods or services were provided in exchange for these contributions except where noted below, and your gifts are deductible to the extent allowed by law.

[Name], [Role]

List each gift the summary covers in a table like this one:

Our post on the year-end appeal that raises this money in the first place covers the ask; this receipt covers what the organization owes the donor once the gift lands.

The $250 rule, and why most nonprofits send a receipt anyway

The IRS set $250 as the point where a donor needs a written acknowledgment to claim the deduction, not the point where a receipt becomes polite. A donor who gave $25 still wants proof for their own records, and a small organization that answers that request by hand every time loses an afternoon it does not have.

The fix is to send a receipt automatically for every gift, so nobody decides case by case whether one is owed. FundHero’s Donation Pages send a confirmation the moment a gift arrives, with a message you customize once so the required wording is right every time instead of retyped under deadline.

A donation receipt is not a thank-you letter

The two documents do different jobs, and sending only one leaves something undone. A donation receipt proves the gift happened, in the words the IRS expects, and it can go out automatically within seconds. A thank-you letter says a person noticed, names what the gift paid for, and asks for nothing in return.

Send both: the receipt protects the donor’s deduction, and the thank-you is what makes them give again next year.

Turn the receipt into a list, not a scramble every December

A year-end summary is easy to write in July and painful to build from memory in January. The difference is whether the gifts were tracked as they came in.

Do this in FundHero:

1. Let Automatic Donation Tracking add the donor record and the gift the moment money arrives, so no contribution depends on somebody remembering to log it.
2. Keep every gift on the donor’s timeline in Donor Profiles, so a year-end summary is a lookup, not a reconstruction.
3. Pull a year’s contributions per donor from FundHero’s premade reports, and export the list to Google Sheets or Excel before you draft a single summary.

That is the sidekick part of the job: the organization decides the wording and signs the letter, and the list of who gave what, and when, is already sitting there waiting.

Frequently asked questions

What has to be on a donation receipt?

The organization’s legal name, the donor’s name, the amount of a cash gift or a description of a non-cash gift, the date, and a statement about goods or services provided in exchange. Five pieces of information, and nothing more is required.

Does every gift need a receipt?

No. The IRS requires a written acknowledgment only for a single gift of $250 or more, but sending one for every gift costs little once a template exists, and it answers a donor’s own record-keeping question before they have to ask.

What if the donor got something in exchange for their gift, like a dinner or a ticket?

Then the receipt has to subtract the value of what they received and state that only the remaining amount is deductible. The IRS’s rules on quid pro quo contributions cover how to estimate that value and when a written disclosure is required.

How do I write a receipt for a non-cash donation, like a laptop or office supplies?

Describe the item. Do not assign it a dollar value. The IRS leaves that estimate to the donor, who claims it on their own return using their own documentation.

Can an automatic email receipt satisfy the IRS requirement?

Yes, as long as it includes the required elements: the organization’s name, the gift amount and date, and the statement on goods or services. FundHero’s Donation Pages send that confirmation immediately, so the wording only has to be set up once.

Do political campaigns need to send donation receipts?

No. A political contribution is not tax-deductible, so a campaign does not issue a donation receipt the way a nonprofit does. Campaigns keep their own records under the FEC’s recordkeeping rules or their state’s, which differ from the IRS rules above.

Start this week

A donation receipt template only has to be written once: the organization’s name, the donor’s name, the gift amount and date, and the required statement on goods or services. Three things to do this week:

1. Write the single-gift version and the year-end summary version, and save both where any staff member can find them.
2. Check whether your current receipt includes the goods-or-services statement. If it does not, every donor who received something in exchange is missing a disclosure they are owed.
3. Decide now who signs receipts and who sends the separate thank-you, so neither one waits on the other.

If you want gifts tracked automatically from the moment they arrive, start a free FundHero trial. No payment information is required, and you can see a donor’s full giving history before you decide anything. Plans and processing fees are on the pricing page.