Do we need to state the fair market value of a non-cash gift?

No, and this is the most common wording mistake. You describe the item the giver donated — a truck, a set of chairs, a stack of lumber — but you do not put a dollar figure on it. Valuing a non-cash gift is the giver's responsibility, not the church's. State what was given, when, and leave the value line blank.

What if we honestly are not sure whether we gave someone anything back?

Ask the question plainly: did this person receive a t-shirt, a meal, a book, a banquet ticket, or anything else of value in exchange for a gift this year? If the answer for everyone on the list is no, the standard goods-and-services line covers you. If a handful of people got something back, pull those statements aside and word them separately rather than guessing for the whole batch.

Should the statement mention that a gift was restricted to a specific fund, like the building fund?

It can, and many givers appreciate seeing it, but it is optional wording, not a required line. If you list a fund name, use the same name consistently across every gift and every statement — a mission fund one place and a missions fund another looks like two different funds to someone reading closely.

Does every giver need a statement, even someone who only gave twenty dollars once?

Most churches send one to everyone who gave anything during the year, regardless of amount, because it costs nothing extra to include them and it closes the door on a later question about whether a small gift counted. There is no requirement forcing a minimum threshold either way — it is a policy choice, and inclusive is the simpler one to defend.

Is an emailed PDF statement acceptable, or does it need to be a mailed paper copy?

This is a policy and preference question more than a wording one, and practice varies by church and by giver. Many congregations now send a PDF by default and mail only on request. Whichever you choose, the wording on the statement itself does not change — only the delivery method does.

Year-end giving statement wording template

A year-end giving statement is not a list of numbers with a letterhead. It is a short document with a handful of specific lines, and one of those lines does real legal work: it is the sentence a giver's accountant will look for if that gift is ever questioned. Miss it, word it loosely, or leave it out, and the statement is a nicely formatted list — not a document that holds up.

Below is the wording, line by line: what has to be there, what is optional but worth adding, and the phrasing that trips churches up most often. Copy the structure, swap in your church's details, and confirm the current requirements with a qualified accountant before you send a batch — this is a wording guide, not tax advice, and the specifics can vary by situation.

The lines every statement needs

Strip a giving statement down to its bones and five things have to be on it, in some order, in some format:

The church's legal name and address. The name on file, not a nickname or a shortened version used on the sign out front.
The giver's name. Matched to how they actually gave, not a household name if the gift came from one spouse's account and the statement is meant for the other.
The date and amount of each contribution, or a total with the understanding that dates are available on request. Most churches list every gift by date; it is more work up front and far less work if a giver ever asks about a specific one.
The total given for the calendar year. The number a giver actually needs, printed clearly, not buried at the bottom of a long list.
The goods-and-services statement, covered in full below, because it is the line that does the legal work.

Everything past those five is optional wording that makes the statement more useful, not a requirement that makes it valid.

The line about goods and services

This is the sentence people get wrong, and getting it wrong is worse than leaving it off, because a wrong version can look intentional. If a giver received nothing back for a contribution — no merchandise, no meal, no banquet seat, nothing of value — the statement should say so, in words close to this:

“No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution.”

That single sentence is the difference between a document that functions as a receipt and a document that is just a list of numbers. If it is missing, a careful accountant may tell the giver the statement does not fully support the gift, even though the money was given in good faith and recorded accurately.

If a giver did receive something — a ticket to a fundraising dinner, a book, a set of tools at a silent auction — the wording changes to describe what was given and, where required, its value, so the giver can subtract that value from what they claim. Those cases are the exception. Pull them out of the regular batch and word them by hand rather than trying to build one template that covers both.

Wording for non-cash gifts

A non-cash gift — a vehicle, furniture, building materials, a musical instrument — gets a description, not a valuation. Wording that works:

“Received: one (describe the item) on (date). No goods or services were provided in exchange for this contribution.”

Notice what is missing: a dollar figure. Assigning a value to someone else's donated property is the giver's job, using whatever appraisal or documentation their own situation requires, not the church's. A statement that puts a number on a donated truck is doing work that is not the church's to do, and doing it wrong is its own kind of liability.

Optional lines worth adding

None of these are required, but each one answers a question a giver would otherwise have to call and ask:

A tax-ID or EIN line, if your church has one on file and wants it visible for the giver's records.
A fund breakdown, if gifts went to more than the general fund — building, missions, benevolence — listed under a consistent name for each.
A brief thank-you line, one sentence, separate from the required wording above it. Warmth belongs on the statement; it just does not belong mixed into the sentence that does the legal work.
A contact name and number for questions, so a giver who spots something off calls a person instead of guessing.

Keep the required section and the optional section visually separate — a short divider or a change in font weight is enough — so nobody mistakes a friendly note for part of the compliance language, or the compliance language for boilerplate they can ignore.

Header and footer details people forget

A few small lines carry more weight than their size suggests. Print the statement period clearly — “January 1 through December 31, 2026” — so nobody confuses it with a partial-year statement mailed for another reason. Note the date the statement was generated, near the bottom, so a giver who compares it to a personal record knows when the snapshot was taken. And if a correction ever has to go out, mark the reissued copy “corrected statement” in the header rather than sending a second one that looks identical to the first and hoping the giver notices the new numbers.

The edge cases worth deciding in advance

A few situations come up every year and are easier to handle if the wording is decided before the first statement goes out rather than argued over during the January rush:

A check dated December 31 but deposited in January. Decide which year it counts in, apply the rule the same way for everyone, and confirm the current guidance with an accountant — this is exactly the kind of edge case that changes.
A gift given jointly by a couple but recorded under one name. Decide whether the statement lists both names or one, and stay consistent household to household.
A pledge that was never fully paid. The statement reflects what was actually given, not what was promised — a pledge balance is not a contribution.

Write the decision down somewhere your team can find it next December, so the same question does not get re-litigated from scratch every year.

A statement you can build from today

Put the pieces in this order and the wording does its job without reading like a legal notice:

Church name, address, and the statement period.
Giver's name.
Each gift by date and amount, or a total with dates available on request.
Total given for the year, printed clearly.
“No goods or services were provided in exchange for these contributions,” or the adjusted wording for any gift where something was received in return.
Optional: fund breakdown, tax-ID line, thank-you note, contact line.
Date generated, and “corrected statement” if it is a reissue.

The wording is the easy part once it is written down once. The harder part, most years, is getting clean numbers to put behind it — gifts recorded to the right person, duplicate records merged, a reconciliation against the bank done before the rush. If your household records are already tangled, a pass of database cleanup before year-end saves more time than any wording fix, because a perfectly worded statement sent to the wrong household is still wrong. The ongoing habit that keeps the numbers trustworthy year round is covered in tracking giving in a way that respects the giver, and the full fall-to-January workflow — reconciling, cleaning, confirming cutoff rules, then generating — is laid out in the year-end giving statement checklist.

SundayBridge generates a year-end statement from the giving already recorded through the year, ready to print once the wording above is in place. It does not replace an accountant's judgment on the edge cases — no software should. It just means the numbers behind the statement come from records you have already kept clean, rather than a spreadsheet reassembled from memory in January. If giving trends matter to your board beyond the year-end total, see how to read giving trends without over-reading a single slow month.