We have also made our own letterhead. It is in color and has the name of the school, school number, president's name and number on it. I made it on the computer. You'll probably like it after you fiddle with a few graphics and fonts. It is your organization's very own signature.

We send this with every donation solicitation (on a PTA Letterhead word doc)

Company Name
Contact Name
Address
City/State/Zip
Phone Number

We would like to donate the following item(s):
Retail Value:
Restrictions and/or Expiration Date:


Shawn Christopher Minton
Calahan Edible Garden and Schoolyard Habitat Chairman
Calahan St. Elementary PTA
18722 Knapp St.
Northridge, CA 91324
TAX ID # xx-xxxxxxx
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
xxx xxx-xxxx

THANK YOU everyone, What you have suggested, is exactly what I have been doing for the past nine years. We are a small school district, and we get excited when the local supermarket hands us a $20 gift card to purchase a couple bags of cookies. If we do what our president insists we do, (a detailed receipt for every cookie someone bakes for the bake sale etc.)the average Jane and Joe will be scared off and not bother any longer. I always thought a thank you letter was sufficient. Now, if someone wanted to donate something that they would acutally deduct from their taxes - that would be a different story.

I believe we have a president that has lost sight of what we are doing and who we are doing this for. THE KIDS! Can you say POWER TRIP? I also believe I have my work cut out for me.

THANK YOU AGAIN EVERYONE!

There's some grain of truth to what your president says in that there are certain cases where the IRS requires organizations to provide donors with a receipt, so they can deduct the donation. I don't know that anything you are doing actually qualifies as a situation where the receipt is required, but, for argument's sake, let's say that it does. (You can check the IRS website in the nonprofit section to see what all the specific guidelines/requirements are.)

This is fairly easy to resolve. The receipt can be as simple as writing a thank you letter to the person who donated something to you. Which you would probably do as a matter of common courtesy anyway, right? Just specify what it is that they donated; you don't even have to attach a value to it if it's an inkind donation (as opposed to cash). You don't have to spend any money on buying letterhead; it's easy enough to make your own on the computer, as the other posters have said.

Or you can go to the "bonus tools" section of this website, and you'll find a sample receipt there that you can use.

Our school has allowed us to use their letterhead to solicit donations for events that are benefiting our school. If it was a problem, I'm sure the school business manager would have let us know. However, I have designed a letterhead for our group to use simply because it causes less confusion when the donor is writing a check or sending something to us. Letterhead doesn't have to cost you anything. I just went into Word, used a little Wordart and clipart and voile I have letterhead.

I also can't see what the issue is with you soliciting donations via letter or asking parents to help. We always send a letter of thanks to any business who donates so that they have something for their records. Most businesses require you to fill out some sort of donation request form anymore so they have documentation. As for your group having documentation, I can't state IRS rules, but we always keep track of what we received from where through paperwork like flyers and notes we keep for each event, so we could pretty easily go back and confirm a donation. Interesting question though and you can probably find out the proper procedure by calling the IRS directly.

Sometimes I think people get really wound up when they think of dealing with the IRS. They've been great with us over these past few years as we've established our non-profit status and worked our way through the tax filing and such. Myabe you just need to sit down with the President and come up with a list of questions and areas of concern in regards to proper accounting of the donations and then call the IRS for answers.

Hi! When a donation is given to you, you do not need a receipt for the donation. No company or business ever issues you a receipt for something they donate. The company/business is the one who claims the donation on their taxes, not you.

As for letter head...I am strongly in favor of groups having their own letterhead. This need not be an expense. You can make your own letterhead on a computer very easily.

It seems you have a president that is more interested in finding reasons why you can't do things then actually doing anything. That's tough! Good Luck!