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Cash receipt template for non-profit organizations

welcome to five minute lessons for non-profits I'm Ben Takis and today we're going to talk about drafting donor acknowledgment letters this is a subject that is often pretty simple and straightforward but it can get quite complicated pretty quickly depending on the circumstances and it's especially important to get this right since you're navigating legal requirements as well as maintaining donor relationships before we get started please note that this is just general education I am an attorney for non-profit organizations but I'm not your attorney so if you have any questions please retain legal counsel starting first with the legal background for contributions of 250 or more donors cannot use the charitable deduction unless they obtain a written acknowledgment from the organization this is more of a legal requirement on the donor than the organization but of course you're going to want to give acknowledgment letters to all your donors to make them happy make sure that they can get the most out of their deduction there is an area area where there is a legal requirement on organizations this applies for contributions that exceed 75 dollars where there is any element of a payment for goods or services as part of the contribution this is called a quid pro quo contribution and an acknowledgment is going to be required in these cases as well I also want to quickly mention there's a great IRS publication on this topic IRS publication 1771 it's got a lot of good detail and explanation on all these areas the way I like to think about donor acknowledgment letters is that you've got a handful of common scenarios and the obligations of what goes in the letter differs a little bit depending on the situation so first you've got what I'll call regular contributions and those can be in cash or non-cash like property we'll talk about that alternatively you could have quid pro pro contributions and these can also be in cash or non-cash but before I go into what needs to be Inc included in these letters I just want to emphasize whatever the scenario you always want to thank your donors show appreciation I'm focusing mainly on the legal requirements but that doesn't mean that the donor relationship aspect is not important of course it is what to include in these letters as I mentioned it's going to differ a little bit depending on the situation so let's start with cash contributions and in this case the letter is going to need to include the organization's name of course the date of contribution as well as the amount of the contribution one note about the date of contribution this is usually fairly simple but it can get a bit complicated with end of the year contributions and we've got a couple pieces on the site talking more about that moving next to non-cash contributions this would include Gifts of property stock cryptocurrency Bitcoin as well as equipment supplies these all fall under the category of non-cash contributions again this is going to need to include the organ name the date of contribution but instead of the amount you're going to include a description of the items that were donated and in both of these cases if there's no quid pro quo element you're going to need to include a statement that no goods or services were provided in exchange for the contribution a few things not to include in these letters where you have a non-cash donation do not provide a valuation that valuation is the donor's responsibility so for example if the organization got a gift of stock you might say thank you for your donation of 100 shares of XYZ Corp stock you just need to describe the property that was donated Additionally you may find on occasion that a donor incurs expenses that were not reimbursed and they want to get some type of acknowledgment letter the key Point here the organization should not be verifying the amount or putting a valuation on the unreimbursed expenses again this is the donor's responsibility just describe in the acknowledgment later letter the nature of the services that the volunteer or the donor provided let's talk about quid pro quo contributions and how to handle those now the letters for these are going to look very similar to the letters in the case of your regular contributions however here you need to include a statement informing the donor that only the portion of the contribution that exceeds the value of goods or services received is eligible for the charitable deduction and importantly you must provide an estimate of the value of these goods or services unlike those other valuation issues this one is the organization's responsibility there is an exception you should keep in mind for certain insubstantial low-cost goods or services this is all detailed in IRS publication 1771 a common example here would be donor contributes 150 and gets a coffee mug in most cases you're not going to need to value that coffee mug part of it you can usually just treat that as a regular contribution lastly when to send donor acknowledgment letters first the goal should be to send acknowledgment letters promptly after a receipt or at the latest by January 31st of the Year following the donation the strict legal requirement is that donors need these acknowledgment letters no later than the date they file their tax returns or if they're filing late the due date of the returns but you're going to want to get these to your donors sooner than that email or Auto generated acknowledgments are fine so long as all the information that we've been talking about is included and you might need to take a look at that automated process to make sure it is capturing all the different situations in general using these automated letters can be fine that should do it for today for more information visit the website at se4nprofits.com see you next time [Music]