What Must a 501(c)(3) Donation Receipt Include?

A 501(c)(3) donation receipt must include: the organization's name, the date and amount of a cash gift (or a description — not value — of a non-cash gift), and a statement about whether the donor received goods or services in return. That last sentence is where receipts fail: for gifts of $250 or more, a donor with no written acknowledgment containing it can lose the entire deduction — courts have enforced this to the letter.

This is general information, not tax advice.

The thresholds, from the donor's side

• Any cash gift: a bank record or written acknowledgment is required — no deduction for undocumented cash in the plate.
• $250+ (single gift): a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the charity is mandatory, received by the earlier of filing or the return's due date. The bank record alone no longer suffices.
• Quid pro quo gifts over $75: if the donor got something (dinner, event entry), the charity must provide a written disclosure with a good-faith estimate of that benefit's value; only the excess is deductible.
• Non-cash gifts: description required; $500+ adds Form 8283; $5,000+ generally requires a qualified appraisal.

The receipt, field by field

1. Organization's legal name (EIN recommended — donors' tax software asks for it).
2. Date of the contribution (and receipt date if different).
3. Amount of cash, or description of property — the charity describes, never values, non-cash gifts; valuation is the donor's problem by design.
4. The goods-and-services statement, one of three forms:

• "No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution."
• "In exchange, the donor received [item] with an estimated fair market value of $X." (Deductible portion = gift − X.)
• "Only intangible religious benefits were provided."

1. Signature or authorized issuance — not legally required, but standard.

The magic words in item 4 are the compliance core: an acknowledgment silent on goods and services fails the statute even if everything else is perfect.

For nonprofits: process notes

Issue acknowledgments promptly (year-end summaries by late January cover the timing safely), number or log them like any receipt series (the numbering discipline), and template the three statements so volunteers can't improvise them wrong. Recurring donors can get one annual statement listing each gift. Auctions and galas trigger the quid pro quo disclosure — estimate benefit values before the event, not after. The donation receipt template at /create carries the required fields and statement language ready to fill.

For donors: what to check before filing

That every $250+ gift has its acknowledgment in hand (not promised), that the goods-and-services sentence is present, and that non-cash gifts are described. Missing one? Request it now — acknowledgment must exist before you file. Then keep them to normal tax retention standards, per which receipts to keep for taxes; donation substantiation follows the same audit windows as everything else in how long to keep receipts.

The bottom line

Name, date, amount-or-description, and the goods-and-services sentence — with $250 as the line where the paper becomes mandatory and $75-with-benefits as the line where valuation joins it. Charities that template this never think about it again; donors who check for the sentence never lose a deduction to a technicality.