Nonprofit Donation Letter Templates

Six letters covering almost everything a small organization sends: acknowledgement with nothing received in return, acknowledgement where the donor received something, non-cash gifts, pledge reminders, the annual appeal, and the monthly donor anniversary.

Two of them carry wording that is not optional, and the section below explains why.

The wording the IRS requires

For any single gift of $250 or more, the donor needs a contemporaneous written acknowledgement from you to claim a deduction. It must state the amount of cash or describe any property received, and it must state whether you provided any goods or services in return.

If you did provide something, describe it and give a good faith estimate of its value, because only the excess is deductible.

Separately, where someone pays more than $75 in a transaction that is part gift and part purchase, such as a fundraising dinner, you must give a written disclosure of the deductible portion.

Contemporaneous means the donor has it by the earlier of the date they file their return or its due date, so in practice send it promptly. Get this wrong and the donor loses the deduction, not you.

Do not value non-cash gifts

Describe what you received and stop there. Valuation is the donor’s responsibility, and putting a figure in your letter creates a problem for both of you: for them if the IRS disagrees with it, and for you because you have made a valuation you were not qualified to make.

Where a donor claims a deduction for non-cash property above a threshold, they will complete Form 8283 and may bring it to you to sign. Signing acknowledges receipt, not the valuation. And if you dispose of donated property within three years, Form 8282 may be required.

The thank you is not the receipt

A receipt says $50 was received. A thank you says what $50 does and that a person noticed. Send both, and do not let an automated receipt be the only contact a donor gets.

Sector-wide donor retention was 43.3% in 2025, meaning over half of last year’s donors will not give again. A prompt, specific thank you is the strongest predictor of a second gift and it costs almost nothing.

Specific means naming what the money does. “Your $50 provides a week of after-school tutoring for one student” outperforms “your generous support makes our work possible” by a distance, because the second sentence could belong to any organization.

Timing

The monthly donor anniversary is the most neglected letter in fundraising. Monthly gifts arrive silently, so these donors are thanked least and are worth most. A note saying what a year of their giving paid for is the highest return communication most organizations never send.

Writing an appeal that works

Four things separate appeals that raise money from appeals that do not.

Open with one specific story or fact. Not a summary of the organization. A reader decides in one sentence whether to continue.

Suggest amounts, tied to something concrete. $25 does this, $100 does that. People who are given no figure give less, and people given a figure attached to a result give more than people given a figure alone.

Reference their last gift where you have it. Naming what someone gave last year and what it achieved, then asking for a step up, outperforms a generic ask substantially.

One ask, one link. Multiple competing actions reduce all of them.

One more group worth separating: people who gave in response to a specific appeal or event. Referencing the thing they responded to, rather than the organization in general, consistently outperforms, because it reminds them why they gave rather than asking them to reconstruct it.

Signing and sending

Small decisions that change response rates more than the copy does.

Sign it from a person. A named individual with a title, not the organization. Letters signed by an organization are read as circulars.

Handwrite something. A single line added by hand to a printed letter, even four words, measurably lifts response. For a small organization writing a few hundred letters, this is achievable in an evening with volunteers.

Use their name correctly. Check spellings against your records before sending, and check how couples are recorded. A misspelled name is the detail people remember, and it undoes everything else in the letter.

Include a reply device. A form and an envelope for post, or one link for email. Make the action require as little thought as possible.

Post still works. Email is cheap and physical post outperforms it for donors over a certain age and for larger gifts. Most small organizations have abandoned post entirely on cost grounds without ever testing whether it paid.

Segmenting so the letters are not identical

The same appeal sent to everybody underperforms, and segmenting does not require software or a large list.

The third row is the one organizations get wrong most often. Sending a monthly donor the standard annual appeal, asking them to give as though they were not already giving every month, reads as though nobody is paying attention. Suppress them from the general appeal or write to them differently.

The last row matters as much. A major donor who receives the same letter as everyone else has been told what they are worth to you, and a personal ask raises more anyway.

Pledge reminders, written warmly

Most unpaid pledges are forgotten rather than withdrawn, so the tone should be warm rather than administrative.

State the original pledge, what has been received, what remains and when it is due. Add one sentence on how the work it funds is going. Then make it easy to pay and invite them to tell you if circumstances have changed, because you would far rather know than chase.

An organization that treats a pledge reminder like an invoice from a supplier converts fewer of them and loses donors in the process.

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Questions people ask

What must a nonprofit donation receipt include?

For any single gift of $250 or more: the organization's name, the amount of cash or a description of any property received, and a statement of whether the organization provided any goods or services in return.

If something was provided, describe it and give a good faith estimate of its value, since only the excess over that value is deductible.

Including your EIN and a line confirming your exempt status is not required and is helpful, because donors and their accountants look for it.

It must be contemporaneous, meaning the donor has it by the earlier of the date they file their return or its due date. In practice, send it promptly.

Do we need to send receipts for donations under $250?

The written acknowledgement requirement applies at $250 and above for a single gift. Below that, a donor can substantiate a cash gift with a bank record.

Send an acknowledgement anyway, for every gift. It costs almost nothing and it is the contact that produces the second gift.

Note that the $250 threshold applies per gift, not per year. Twelve monthly gifts of $30 are twelve separate $30 gifts rather than one $360 gift, so none individually crosses the threshold. Many organizations send an annual statement summarising the year regardless, which donors find useful.

What do we write for a donation that included a benefit?

State the total paid, describe what the donor received, give a good faith estimate of its fair market value, and state the deductible balance.

For example: thank you for your payment of $150 for the annual dinner. In return you received dinner with an estimated fair market value of $60. The amount deductible as a charitable contribution is $90.

This disclosure is required where a payment exceeds $75 and is partly a gift and partly a purchase.

Estimating the value is your responsibility, and it should be what the goods or services would cost the donor elsewhere, not what they cost you.

Should we state the value of a non-cash donation?

No. Describe the property and stop there.

Valuation is the donor's responsibility. Stating a figure creates exposure for them if the IRS disagrees with it, and it puts you in the position of having made a valuation you were probably not qualified to make.

Write something like: thank you for your donation of one used commercial refrigerator, received on this date. No goods or services were provided in return.

Where a donor claims a deduction above a threshold they will complete Form 8283 and may ask you to sign it. Signing acknowledges receipt, not the value. If you dispose of donated property within three years, Form 8282 may be required.

How soon should we send a thank you letter?

Within 48 hours where you can, and always within a week.

Speed matters more than polish. A plain note arriving the next day does more for retention than a designed letter arriving six weeks later, by which point the donor has forgotten giving.

Automate the immediate receipt through your donation platform, then send something human on top of it. The automated receipt satisfies the requirement; the human note is what produces the second gift.

For larger gifts, a telephone call from a board member within a week outperforms anything written.

How often should we send donation appeals?

Three or four times a year is normal and not excessive.

The common pattern at a small organization is one appeal in December and silence otherwise, which means supporters hear from you only when you want money. That is what makes appeals feel intrusive, rather than the number of them.

Aim for at least two communications telling people what happened for every one asking. That makes the ask part of a relationship.

Offer a preference option and honour it. Someone who asks for one letter a year and receives four will remove themselves entirely.

What is an annual contribution statement?

A summary sent in January listing everything a donor gave in the prior year, with dates and amounts.

It is not required where individual acknowledgements were properly sent, and donors find it genuinely useful at tax time, particularly recurring donors whose individual gifts were each below $250.

Include the same required elements: amounts, and a statement about goods or services received, with any part-gift transactions itemised separately.

It also functions as a warm, non-soliciting contact at a point in the year when most organizations send nothing, which makes it worth doing for reasons beyond compliance.

Can we send donation receipts by email?

Yes. There is no requirement that acknowledgements be on paper, and email is contemporaneous and easy for donors to store.

The content requirements are identical: the amount or description, and the statement about goods or services provided in return.

Two practical points. Make it easy to save or print, since donors keep these for their records, and avoid burying the required wording under promotional content.

For larger gifts, send something physical as well. A card that arrives in the post is noticed in a way an email is not, and the cost is trivial against the value of the relationship.

This is reference information, not legal or tax advice. Rules vary by state and change over time. For a decision that carries real consequences, check the current text at irs.gov or your state registry, and talk to a nonprofit attorney or CPA.