How to make donation receipts from Excel or Google Sheets

Your donor list is already in a spreadsheet. Here are three ways to turn it into year-end receipt letters, and what to fix in the sheet first.

What your spreadsheet needs

Use one row for each gift, not one row for each donor, and put a heading in the first row. These are the columns that matter:

• Donor name. One column with the full name, or separate first and last name columns.
• Gift date.
• Amount. Leave it empty for a non-cash gift.
• Address, city, state and ZIP, if you will mail the letters.
• Email, if you will send them electronically. It also tells apart two donors with the same name.
• Non-cash gift description, for donated items.
• Goods or services given to the donor, and their value, for event tickets and similar.

Your headings do not need to match these exactly. You can see the layout in this sample donor file.

Clean it up first

• Spell each donor the same way every time. "Bob Smith" and "Robert Smith" will be treated as two people.
• Check the dates are in the right year. A gift dated December 31 and one dated January 2 belong on different years' letters.
• Remove subtotal and total rows.
• Take out pledges that were never paid and any refunded gifts.
• Mark event payments with what the donor received and its value. See receipts for events and auctions.

Method 1: Word mail merge

Mail merge is free if you have Microsoft Word, and it works well when every donor gave exactly once.

1. Write the letter in Word. The free letter templates have the wording.
2. On the Mailings tab choose Start Mail Merge, then Letters.
3. Choose Select Recipients, then Use an Existing List, and pick your spreadsheet.
4. Put merge fields where the name, date and amount go.
5. Choose Finish & Merge.

The limitation is that mail merge writes one letter for each row. A donor with five gifts gets five letters, unless you first rebuild the sheet so each donor has a single row with all their gifts across it. Event payments and non-cash gifts need different wording, which means separate merges for each kind of letter.

Method 2: Google Docs with an add-on

Google Docs has no built-in mail merge. Add-ons from the Google Workspace Marketplace can fill a Docs template from a Sheet. They work the same way as Word, one document per row, so the same limitation applies, and most need permission to read your Google Drive. Check what an add-on can access before you give it your donor list.

Method 3: Upload the spreadsheet

This site was built for the case mail merge handles badly. It reads your file with one row per gift and writes one letter per donor.

1. Save your sheet as a CSV file. In Excel: File, Save As, and choose "CSV UTF-8". In Google Sheets: File, Download, "Comma Separated Values".
2. Add the file. It is read inside your browser and is not uploaded.
3. Check the column matching and fill in your organization's name, EIN and signer.
4. Review the preview and the list of any rows that were skipped.
5. Download. You get one combined PDF to print, or a ZIP with one PDF per donor to email.

Each donor's gifts are combined on one letter. Event benefits are subtracted, non-cash gifts are described without a value, and each letter gets the statement the IRS requires for its case. The first three letters are free, and a full season is $19.

Which method should you use?

• Under about ten donors: copy and paste from the templates.
• Every donor gave once, no events, no donated items: Word mail merge.
• Repeat donors, event tickets or non-cash gifts: upload the spreadsheet.

Before you send them

• Spot-check five letters against your records, including your largest donor.
• Make sure every letter says whether goods or services were provided. The IRS requirements guide explains why.
• Have an officer sign them.
• Send by January 31 and keep a copy of each.