Yearly Donation Summary Email

Features in this article may not be included in every Funraise plan.

Article Contents

What does this email automation do?

The Yearly Donation Summary Email can provides an itemized donation receipt email for your donors to use with their tax season reporting. Along with your custom content, you can add data merge tags in the body of the email that will display donation totals and details for the previous year.

The email will be sent to any Supporter who made at least one donation in the previous year. For example, any Supporters who made a donation in 2020 can receive this email in 2021.

Message queues are finalized the last week of January
Yearly Donation Summary emails begin sending the first week of February

Edit the Yearly Donation Summary Email

1. In the main Side menu > Click Email Campaigns

2. Click Yearly Donation Summary

On the email automation profile, you can:

Toggle the automation on or off
Access the email editor
Send a test email
Configure unsubscribe redirect link - This is the url a donor will be directed to if they click to unsubscribe. In most cases, we recommend using the Funraise default.

Automation Rules

As soon as this campaign is activated, it will begin queueing messages for the next year, for example donations in 2020 will add messages to the 2021 queue. As with any automation, we recommend only activating this email after you have entered your content and tested your email.

Once the automation is activated, it will continue to run each year.

Important: If the automation is toggled off, any queued messages will be deleted. This means you should not toggle off your automation during last week of January (when the queue is being finalized) or the first week of February (when the email will send) - there is no way to refill your queue.

Important Dates

Last week of January

At this time, Funraise begins queuing messages for activated campaigns. Your email automation must be active at this time (toggled on) in order to finalize your recipient queue.

First week of February

The Yearly Donation Summary emails begin sending the first week of February. It can take up to a week for all messages to be delivered. The send date can not be edited.

Data merge tags

You'll add merge tags to the body of the email to display giving details. These are the merge tags you'll use for this email.

*|fr:last_year|*

Last year, "2019"

*|donor:name|*

Full name of the donor (or institution), "Debbie Donor"

*|donor:last_year_donation_total|*

Total donation amount last year, "$250.00"

*|donor:last_year_donations|*

Table of the donor's donations amounts and dates for the previous year.

*|organization:tax_id|*

Your EIN, or Tax ID number, "12-3456789"

Currency merge tag parameter (Advanced)

*|donor:last_year_donations[show_source_currency=true]|*

You may want to use this parameter if you collect donations in multiple currencies. By default the last year donation table will use your organization's default currency. If this parameter is set to true, it will show transaction amounts in the source currency (the currency the donor used when donating). The currency symbol is also included.

Note: If you use the above parameter, we recommended that you do not use *|donor:last_year_donation_total|* . This total amount uses your organization's default currency.

Example content

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The example above might look like this when sent:

Hi Debbie Donor,
Thank you so much for being an important part of our impact last year. We couldn't have done it without you! This is your 2019 donation summary, please keep it for your records.

2019 Donation Total
$500.00

2019 Donation Summary
January 19, 2019 $100.00
March 19, 2019 $100.00
September 19, 2019 $100.00
November 19, 2019 $100.00
December 19, 2019 $100.00

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You can also include a merge tag in the subject line. For example:

Your *|fr:last_year|* Donation Summary

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Depending on your location, you may need to provide additional language to verify that these transaction are donations. For example, US organizations might want to add this text:

Federal income tax law requires us to inform you that no goods or services were provided to you in return for your gift. Therefore, within the limits prescribed by law, the full amount of your gift is deductible for federal income tax purposes.

Our Tax ID is *|organization:tax_id|*.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I resend a Yearly Donation Summary email?

Yes, you can resend a Yearly Donation Summary email for an individual Supporter. You can not resend the email to a list of Supporters.

Can I print a Yearly Donation Summary from Funraise?

No, the Yearly Donation Summary email can only be sent as an email. If you would like to print and snail mail yearly donation summaries, you can use a mail merge tool in your external word processor. This is a common technique, but not something our team can support because it's functionality outside of Funraise.

Can I see who is in the queue to receive the email?

No, at this time you can not view the queued recipients.

Can I see who has received the email?

Yes. You can see if an individual Supporter has received the email from the Supporter's profile. If your plan includes Fundraising Intelligence, Funraise's custom reporting feature, you can create a report of emails that have been sent for a particular campaign.

Can I remove a donation from the Donation Summary list?

Yes, you can add a Tag to a Transaction to remove it from the Donation Summary list.