Is My #GivingTuesday Donation Tax Deductible?

By Nathan Camp

Read time: 3 Minutes

It's that time of year again, the season of year-end giving. Many donors will give more during these last few weeks than in the whole year combined. While that used to be done in person at a service or event, starting in 2012, a new giving phenomenon took over the end-of-year giving landscape in the form of #GivingTuesday. Often espoused as a "global generosity movement," #GivingTuesday is the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving when many nonprofits will see an influx of year-end donations, mainly through their online giving options. This is an important time for donors, and with $2.47B in giving in 2020 alone on #GivingTuesday, it's important for your church or ministry to understand how to engage in this day.

1. Setup online giving 

The first step is to make sure that your church has online giving capabilities. While it is possible that some donors will engage in #GivingTuesday through a physical donation through dropping off a gift at a church or ministry location, the truth is, without having an established online giving option, many organizations will simply miss out on #GivingTuesday. (StartCHURCH makes it easy to get online giving set up for your church in just about 1 hour. For more information, please click here.)

2. Develop a giving campaign 

Once your church or ministry is set up with online giving capabilities, the next step is to develop a campaign theme around which to rally their donors. This can be a specific giving project, organization, item, or more. 

After a theme has been selected, begin to get the word out about your campaign. This often looks like an email series about your campaign to your donor list and postings on social media, raising awareness of their campaign and focusing their "call to action" on #GivingTuesday. This doesn't have to be elaborate, just clear. There are many ways to engage in #GivingTuesday to make the most of this moment. Much has been written about the kind of strategies to employ. You can find out more strategies here for engaging in #GivingTuesday here.

3. Get your organization on IRS Publication 78

The last important part of having a successful Giving Tuesday is to make sure that your potential donors can validate your tax-exempt status. 

As Giving Tuesday is a global movement, potential donors will have a substantial amount of requests for contributions on this day, some of which are not tax-exempt organizations. To help protect their donations, many donors will seek to validate a church or ministry's tax-exempt status by searching for your church's tax-exempt status on the IRS Publication 78 searchable website. Seeing your organization's name on this site gives many donors the confidence that their gift is, in fact, tax-deductible and that the organization they want to give to has taken the needed steps to be a tax-exempt organization.

Getting on this list automatically happens when a church or ministry has filed for their 501(c)(3). This step not only results in your church receiving a federal determination letter from the IRS, confirming that your church or ministry is recognized as a tax-exempt organization, but will additionally be added to Publication 78. There's great confidence in knowing that the IRS has recognized your church as having met all the qualifications to be a tax-exempt organization.