An end-of-year giving summary (also known as a year-end or annual statement), is the best way to give your donors a summary of their contributions from the past year. These individualized reports contain a complete snapshot of donor history for the given reporting year, including all online and offline transactions.
You can generate summaries for all contacts, or for individual contacts. To deliver reports to your donors, you can have them automatically emailed out by Givebutter, create a custom email using Engage, or you can download, print, and mail them yourself.
The Method column will display the payment method used for each transaction, including offline payment methods such as Stock, In-Kind, Property, and Other.
Want to see an example? View a sample end-of-year-report →
Add a custom memo ➕
Before you generate year-end summaries, you have the option of adding a customized memo to each report. This is useful if you need to include tax-deductibility information or a notice that no goods or services were provided in exchange for a donation.
In your dashboard, navigate to Settings in the left-hand menu bar, then select Account.
Click on Year-End Summaries in the sub-menu.
Add your custom memo, and Save.
If added, this memo will apply to all summaries generated. A memo must be added before the year-end summaries are generated.
Emailing summaries 📨
Use this option for the quickest delivery to your supporters, without any printing or mailing! Emails (including a default summary message) are automatically sent out to the primary email address on file for each supporter who made at least one contribution in the selected reporting year.
From your Contacts page, click Export individuals in the upper right corner, and select Send Year-End Summaries.
In the popup window, choose the option that says Email my contacts, and verify that you give permission for Givebutter to send an email to your contacts.
Emails will be sent to all relevant contacts with a valid primary email, including unsubscribed contacts. Emails are sent from no-reply@givebutter.com, rather than your Engage sender email address. These are not marketing emails.
Select the year you want to generate the report for, and click Email selected year. A confirmation popup will appear, and you'll be sent an email notification once all summaries have been emailed to your supporters.
Emailed summaries include PDF attachments for your supporters, who can also view an in-browser version via the View Annual Summary button in the email.
Sample year-end summary email
Sample year-end summary email
This includes a default template message that cannot currently be edited. The following information will auto-populate:
Your organization's logo (upper left corner)
Your organization's name
The name of the donor
The year of the generated report
If you wish to create a more customizable message, we recommend sending an email to your supporters via Engage, utilizing the available merge tags to populate donor names and end-of-year summaries.
Sending summaries with Engage ✍
If you would prefer to create a fully-customized year-end report, you also have the option of creating your own template using Engage. The use of merge tags supports customized data-entry for each specific contact in your Givebutter account.
Create your outbound email using Engage.
Make use of the Year-End Summaries merge tags available in the Engage email composer.
Last Year Year-End Summary Link – specific for this contact
This Year Year-End Summary Link – specific for this contact
This merge tag will auto-populate with a link to the recipient's personalized year-end summary, eliminating the need to send individual reports to your supporters.
Haven't used Engage before? Verified nonprofits can connect a domain to send out Engage emails, but you can also quickly email out summaries including a default message without any additional setup.
Downloading summaries 👨👩👦
Use this option if you plan on printing and mailing (or otherwise delivering) physical copies of the generated EOY summaries. Files are generated for each supporter who made at least one contribution in the selected reporting year.
This option does not automatically send reports out to your donors – it allows you to save them to your own computer for independent printing and mailing.
From your Contacts page, click on Export and select Send Year-End Summaries.
In the popup window, choose the option to Download .zip file.
Select the year you want to generate the report for, and click Export selected year.
You'll be sent a message to the email address you're logged in with. Sometimes the email can take a few minutes to generate. When it arrives, click the Download button in the email, and it will prompt a download of the export file in ZIP format.
For security, you must be logged into Givebutter to download this export.
After download, if you can't locate the file, check your Downloads folder and desktop. Inside the expanded folder you'll find your end-of-year reports.
To open a ZIP file, you'll need to expand it. On a Mac, you can double-click on the ZIP file, and it will expand to show the folder of reports in PDF format.
Printing summaries on Mac
Open a new Finder window on your Mac. You can do this by clicking on the Finder icon in your dock or, with Finder selected as the active application, use the keyboard shortcut Command + N.
Navigate to the location that contains the files you want to print. In our example, it’s a "summaries" folder in Downloads. Open the folder, and you will see a list of all the reports generated.
Finder may already be open if you've just downloaded your bulk report folder. If you're only seeing a ZIP file, it still needs to be expanded.
Select all the files (Command + A) or just the files you want to print by holding down the Command key and clicking once on each file.
Once the files you want to print are selected, choose one:
Using Finder – Choose File > Print from Finder’s menu bar options, and you'll be prompted to print the files if you have a printer connected.
Using Preview – Open the files with Preview, and choose File > Print from Preview's menu bar options, and you'll be prompted to print the files.
Printing summaries on PC
Go to the Windows Settings interface. Click on Devices and then Printers & Scanners. Select the printing device you would like to use.
A window will pop up after you click on the button 'Open Queue'. Choose all the PDFs that you would like to print and drag them into the queue window.
When the pop-up window appears and prompts if you would like to print all the files at once, click on the option 'Yes' to confirm it.
Individual summaries 🧍♂️
You can also generate summaries for individual donors and share them as a PDF attachment or via a unique link.
On the Contacts page, select the contact you'd like to generate a report for.
In the contact profile, select the Summaries tab. Click Generate Summary.
In the popup, select the desired reporting year and click Generate.
If a report for the selected year already exists, it will replace the existing one.
The report will appear under the Summaries heading. Click the three dots [...] to View, Download PDF, or Delete a report.
Download a report to physically print and mail it, or use the Shareable Link to email it to your donor! Click the toggle under Shareable Link to create a permalink to this report. Click Copy to copy the link.
Upon opening the Shareable Link, your donor will be able to view, print, or save a digital copy of their EOY summary.
FAQ 🤔
Are imported transactions included in an end-of-year report?
Yes! Imported transactions are included in an end-of-year report, even if they were not processed through Givebutter.
Are emailed and downloaded EOY summaries different in any way?
Emailed EOY summaries and summaries that are downloaded and printed are formatted the same way. The content of the resulting PDF summary is identical regardless of how it is generated, so choose the method most convenient for your organization.
My end-of-year summaries weren't sent to all my contacts.
This is likely because not all of your contacts submitted a donation in the selected reporting year, or because there wasn't a valid email address on file for all the relevant contacts.
Are end-of-year reports customizable? Can I add text to these summaries?
Yes! You can add a memo or additional information to your end-of-year summaries. To do this, visit your Account Settings. Under Year-End Summaries, you can add and save a memo that will be added to each summary generated (whether your reports are being emailed or downloaded).
Are refunded transactions included in an end-of-year report?
Yes, refunded transactions are included on a contact's end-of-year report, labeled as refunded.
Can end-of-year reports be emailed out to my donors?
Yes! Please see the above option for emailing summaries for instructions on how to email bulk EOY summaries from within Givebutter. Please note that emailed reports are not automatic at the end of the year – summaries must still be generated and sent by an admin.
How do I view my past exports?
You can view and re-download your export history by clicking Export History under the Actions button on the Contacts page.