Church contribution statement template

The template

Copy it into your word processor. Replace each part in brackets. Keep one line per gift, or one line per fund if your records only have totals by fund.

[Church name]
[Church street address, city, state ZIP]   EIN [00-0000000]

[Date of the letter]

[Donor name or names]
[Street address]
[City, State ZIP]

Dear [first names],

Thank you for your generous support of [church name]. Below are the
contributions we received from you between January 1 and December 31, 2026.

Date            Fund                  Amount
[Jan 4, 2026]   [General fund]        [$60.00]
[...one line per gift...]
Total for 2026  ([number] gifts)      [$total]

No goods or services were provided in exchange for these contributions
other than intangible religious benefits.

Please keep this letter with your tax records.

[Signature]
[Name], [Title], [Church name]

What each part is for

• The church's name. The IRS expects the written acknowledgment to name the organization that received the gift. The address and EIN are not required, but they help a donor or a tax preparer confirm who you are.
• Each gift and the total. The acknowledgment must state the amount of each cash contribution. A dated list also covers a separate rule: donors need a bank record or a written communication from the church showing the date and amount of every cash gift, whatever its size.
• The goods-or-services sentence. For a gift of $250 or more, the acknowledgment must say whether the church gave anything in return. A church that gives only intangible religious benefits, such as worship services, can say so without valuing them. That is the sentence in the template.
• The date. Donors must receive the statement by the date they file their return for the year, or its due date with extensions if that is earlier. Many churches send statements in January.
• No Social Security number. It is not needed, so leave it off. That keeps a sensitive number out of the mail.

These points come from Publication 1771 and the IRS page on written acknowledgments. There is no IRS form for a contribution statement: a letter, a postcard, a computer-generated form or an email with this information is acceptable.

When the template needs more than one sentence

If a member bought a ticket to a church dinner or won an auction item, the plain sentence is no longer true for that payment. The letter has to describe what they received and give a good-faith estimate of its value. A payment over $75 that is partly a gift and partly for goods or services also needs a disclosure that only the amount above that value may be deductible. See receipts for dinners, auctions and tickets for wording and an example.

Gifts of stock, a vehicle or other property also need different wording: the statement describes the property but does not put a value on it. Vehicle donations have their own form, Form 1098-C.

Filling it in for every member

One statement is easy to type. A church with 80 giving households has 80 statements, each with its own list of gifts, and the usual risk is a typo in an amount or a member who gives under two spellings and gets two letters. Mail merge helps with names and addresses, but it does not handle a different number of gift lines per member.

Giving Receipts fills this template from your gift spreadsheet. It groups gifts by member, flags names that may be the same household, checks that the letters add up to the file's total, and makes one PDF per member. You can change the opening paragraph, the date, the greeting (first names, full name or "Dear Friend") and the fund names, such as "GEN" to "General fund". If you keep your giving in QuickBooks, start with the QuickBooks guide; for a spreadsheet, see Excel or Google Sheets.

Honest limits

• The template and the tool produce the statement; they do not decide whether a gift is deductible for a particular member.
• Statements are only as accurate as your records. Compare the total of all letters with your books before mailing. The tool shows both numbers, but it cannot see gifts that were never entered.
• The letter is in English and for US federal tax purposes. State rules and other languages are not covered.

Giving Receipts turns the records you provide into letters. It does not give tax, legal or accounting advice and is not affiliated with the IRS. For your organization's situation, ask a tax professional. Sources and how we use them: About and sources.