We recommend sending donation acknowledgements soon after the transaction with System Emails and/or System Letters. However, many organizations choose to send an additional message at the end of the year, summarizing contributions. This is not required by the IRS if you have sent contemporaneous acknowledgments for each transaction but can be a part of good stewardship.
You can send end-of-year receipts in a few different ways. Here are suggested messages with tips about how to best acknowledge your constituents' contributions.
Tip: Replace all items in [brackets] with your own information. Replace all items in < > with tokens.
Acknowledging Donations
Organizations only acknowledging donations should send this message in January. It can be sent via campaign email or campaign letter.
Run a report to identify the message recipients as all accounts with donations this year.
Note: When sending a campaign email, these credentials should be set as an email audience before drafting the email.
For a Campaign Letter:
Letters>Campaign Letters & Tracking>New Campaign Letter
Dear <>,
Wow - [year] was a big year for <> as we [moved to a new location, expanded our program offerings, etc]. You helped make it happen!
In [year], you contributed a total of $<<[Year] Calendar Year Donation Amount>>.
<> is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and your donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our EIN number is ##-#######. No gifts or services were provided to you in exchange for your gift. Instead, we were able to use the full <<[Year] Calendar Year Donation Amount>> to fund our programs.
Thank you!
With gratitude,
[Development or Executive Director Signature uploaded as an image]
For a Campaign Email:
Emails>Email Audiences>New Audience
After creating your audience of all donors for the calendar year using the report credentials, draft your email using the Email Campaign editor.
Emails>Email Campaigns>New Email Campaign
The wording in the campaign letter example above could also work for a campaign email using tokens. Alternatively, the Campaign Email editor has an included content block where you can add a Donation Summary Table.
Itemized Donation Table
Neon has a set of email tokens that generate an itemized donation table that includes the total donation amount in the last row. These tokens are for the current and last calendar year as well as the 3 most recent fiscal years and are available for Campaign Emails, Campaign Letters, Donation Appreciation System Emails, and Donation Appreciation System Letters.
Note: Only successful donations and pledge payments are included in the itemized donation table. In-Kind donations will be included in the list (including the description of non-cash donation if one is provided), but the Fair Market Value will not be shown or counted towards the yearly donation total.
These tokens can be used in a Campaign Email or a Campaign Letter to send out itemized receipt emails to your donors at the end of the year, as shown in the example below.
Donation Summary Table
If you are using Campaign Email to send out your year-end receipts, you can use the Donation Summary Table rather than the Itemized Donation Table with the built-in content block in the email editor.
When you’ve added the Donation Summary Table to your email, you can customize it by clicking the gear icon to the right of the table.
The default table has the constituent’s total donation amount and date for each donation an individual donor gave for that year. However, in the customization pop-up, you will be able to:
- Display other donation fields on the table, including Campaign or Tender Type
- Only show donations within that year allocated to a specific Campaign, Fund, or Purpose
- Switch between Calendar Year or Fiscal Year total donations, as well as current year/previous year
- Display donations made by other members of the same household
- Include pledges, in-kind gifts, or Donor Covered Fees in the table
Once the email is sent, the constituent will see a message such as this:
Acknowledging Multiple Types of Transactions (Donations and Event Registrations, Memberships, and/or Store Purchases)
Organizations with significant tax-deductible event registrations should send a campaign email. This email could be sent in December or January.
Create an email audience to identify the message recipients as all accounts with donations or tax-deductible event registrations this year.
Dear <>,
Wow - [year] was a big year for <> as we [moved to a new location, expanded our program offerings, etc]. You helped make it happen!
Log in to download receipts for all of your incredible gifts here: [Neon login URL]
Not sure about your password? Click here to reset your login. [Highlight click here & link to the reset password link] It's easy!
<> is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and your donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Our EIN number is ##-#######.
Thank you!
With gratitude,
[Development or Executive Director Signature uploaded as an image]
When they enter the Constituent Login Portal to view & print their own tax receipts, constituents can view their donations & tax-deductible percentages of their event registrations.
