Donor disclosure requirements depend almost entirely on what kind of organization is receiving the money. A 501(c)(3) public charity reports its large contributors to the IRS but keeps their names off the public copy of its return. A private foundation discloses its donors publicly. Most other 501(c) organizations no longer report donor names to the IRS at all after a 2020 rule change. Political committees regulated by the Federal Election Commission must publish the name, address, occupation, and employer of every donor who gives more than $200 in a calendar year. Roughly 40 states add their own rules on top.
501(c)(3) Public Charities: Private to the IRS, Redacted to the Public
Public charities under Section 501(c)(3) receive the strongest donor privacy protections of any nonprofit category. They must report every contributor of $5,000 or more during the tax year on Schedule B of Form 990. That list goes to the IRS and stays there. The organization is legally prohibited from including contributor names and addresses on the copies of Form 990 it makes available to the public.1Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organization Returns and Applications – Public Disclosure Overview
Every tax-exempt organization must make its three most recently filed Forms 990 available for public inspection, either in person at the principal office or by posting them online.2Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organizations Returns and Applications – Documents Subject to Public Disclosure The public sees total contribution revenue, expenses, executive compensation, and program activities. What they do not see is who wrote the checks. An organization providing physical copies may charge up to $0.20 per page plus actual postage.3Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organizations Returns and Applications – Costs for Providing Copies of Documents
The IRS itself retains the donor information for enforcement purposes and can request additional details during an audit. The confidentiality is against the public, not against the government.
Private Foundations: Donor Lists Are Public
Private foundations filing Form 990-PF operate under a completely different rule. Unlike public charities, they must make the entire annual return available for public inspection, and that includes Schedule B with contributor names and addresses. The general exclusion that protects contributor identities on annual returns does not apply to private foundations or to political organizations described in Section 527.4Internal Revenue Service. Public Disclosure and Availability of Exempt Organizations Returns and Applications – Contributors Identities Not Subject to Disclosure
The Form 990-PF instructions confirm that all schedules and attachments filed with the return are subject to public disclosure.5Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 990-PF (2025) Anyone who gives $5,000 or more to a private foundation will appear by name and address on a publicly available document. Prospective donors should understand this before writing a large check.
501(c)(4), (c)(5), and (c)(6) Organizations After 2020
Social welfare organizations under 501(c)(4), labor unions under 501(c)(5), and trade associations under 501(c)(6) used to report their large donors on Schedule B, much like public charities. In 2020, the IRS formally eliminated that requirement for most 501(c) organizations other than 501(c)(3) charities.6Internal Revenue Service. Donations to Section 501(c)(4) Organizations
These organizations still file Form 990 and still report total contribution revenue. They no longer hand a donor list to the IRS at all. If your organization is a 501(c)(4), a (c)(5), or a (c)(6), donor identities do not go to the federal tax authority — though state and campaign finance rules may still reach them, as discussed below.
Political Committees Under the FEC
Political committees live in a different world from charitable nonprofits. The Federal Election Commission regulates them, and its framework is built around public transparency rather than privacy.
Federal law requires every registered political committee to disclose the identity of each person who contributes more than $200 in aggregate during a calendar year. The committee must report the donor’s full name, mailing address, occupation, and employer.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 30104 – Reporting Requirements Contributions below $200 are combined into a single “unitemized” total. The threshold is set by statute, does not adjust for inflation, and has held at $200 for decades.
The distinction between traditional PACs and Super PACs matters for contribution limits but not much for disclosure. Traditional PACs pool contributions and give directly to campaigns subject to limits. Super PACs raise unlimited sums from individuals, corporations, and unions, but cannot contribute directly to candidates or coordinate with their campaigns. Both types must itemize donors above $200 and file regular reports with the FEC. All reported data is published on the FEC’s website.
24- and 48-Hour Reports Near an Election
Independent expenditure reporting speeds up dramatically close to an election. Any person or committee that spends $10,000 or more on independent expenditures at any point up to and including the 20th day before an election must file a 48-hour report. After the 20th day but more than 24 hours before the election, spending of $1,000 or more triggers a 24-hour report.8Federal Election Commission. 24- and 48-Hour Reports of Independent Expenditures Periods – Special Elections (2024) These filings let voters see who is funding political ads in the final stretch.
Foreign National Contributions
Federal law flatly prohibits foreign nationals from contributing to, donating to, or spending money in connection with any federal, state, or local election. The ban covers contributions, independent expenditures, and any spending directed or controlled by a foreign national. Super PACs may accept unlimited domestic contributions but cannot accept anything from a foreign national.9Federal Election Commission. Foreign Nationals
A foreign national also cannot direct, control, or participate in the decision-making process of any person or organization about election-related spending. Knowingly helping a foreign national make or route a contribution is itself a federal violation. Lawful permanent residents (green card holders) are treated like U.S. citizens for contribution purposes. A domestic subsidiary of a foreign corporation may establish a PAC only if the foreign parent provides no election-related funding and all PAC decisions are made by U.S. citizens or permanent residents.9Federal Election Commission. Foreign Nationals
For 501(c)(3) charities, there is no equivalent ban on accepting donations from foreign individuals or entities. Foreign government grants must be reported separately on Form 990, and any contributor giving $5,000 or more still appears on Schedule B regardless of nationality.
State Registration and Disclosure Layers
Federal rules are only half the picture. Roughly 40 states have enacted charitable solicitation statutes that require organizations to register with the state before soliciting donations from its residents.10Internal Revenue Service. Charitable Solicitation – Initial State Registration Registration fees range from as little as $10 to over $1,000 annually, and exemptions vary. National organizations that solicit broadly often register in dozens of states at once.
Many states also impose their own campaign finance disclosure laws for organizations that spend on state elections or ballot initiatives. State itemization thresholds are frequently lower than the FEC’s $200, sometimes $50 or $100. A 501(c)(4) group that owes no donor list to the IRS may still have to disclose its funders to a state elections commission if it spends above a state threshold on political advertising. Lobbying adds another layer: organizations that hire lobbyists to influence state legislatures must register and file expenditure reports, and some states require disclosure of the funding sources behind the lobbying itself.
What Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta Changed
The Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta narrowed how aggressively states can demand donor lists from charities. California had required every charity operating in the state to submit Schedule B (the same donor list filed with the IRS) to the state attorney general’s office. The Court struck down that requirement, ruling 6-3 that it violated donors’ First Amendment associational rights.11Supreme Court of the United States. Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021)
The Court applied “exacting scrutiny,” which requires any disclosure mandate burdening associational rights to be narrowly tailored to a sufficiently important government interest. Chief Justice Roberts found that California’s interest was more about administrative convenience than genuine fraud investigation. The decision does not prevent all state-level donor disclosure, but it gives charities constitutional footing to resist blanket demands for contributor information without a targeted enforcement justification.
How Aggregation and Thresholds Work
Every disclosure system has a floor below which donors stay anonymous. The IRS Schedule B threshold is $5,000 from a single contributor in a tax year. The FEC public itemization threshold is $200 in aggregate contributions per calendar year from a single donor.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 52 USC 30104 – Reporting Requirements State thresholds vary and often fall between the two.
“Aggregate” does real work here. Splitting a large contribution into smaller pieces does not evade the threshold. Four separate $75 donations to a PAC in one year cross the $200 line and require itemizing the donor. Multiple gifts from the same person during a tax year are combined for Schedule B purposes as well.
The nature of the payment matters too. Membership dues paid to a 501(c)(5) labor union or 501(c)(6) trade association are generally not treated as “contributions” for Schedule B purposes; they are the price of membership. But a payment earmarked for a specific political purpose (money given to an intermediary with the understanding it will pass through to a particular candidate) loses any anonymity protection and must be traced through to its final recipient.
What Donors Must Receive from You
Disclosure rules also govern what organizations must tell their donors so those donors can claim a deduction.
For any cash contribution of $250 or more, the donor can only claim a deduction if they have a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the organization. The acknowledgment must state the amount contributed, whether the organization provided any goods or services in return, and a good-faith estimate of the value of those goods or services.12Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526 – Charitable Contributions “Contemporaneous” means the donor must hold the acknowledgment by the time they file, or by the return’s due date, whichever comes first.
For payments over $75 that are partly a contribution and partly payment for goods or services (a $150 gala ticket where $100 is the charitable portion, for example), the organization must provide a written disclosure statement breaking out the deductible and non-deductible portions.12Internal Revenue Service. Publication 526 – Charitable Contributions
Penalties for Getting It Wrong
Both the IRS and FEC enforce disclosure with financial penalties, and repeat failures threaten an organization’s existence.
An organization that fails to file Form 990 by its due date, including extensions, owes $20 per day. The maximum penalty for smaller organizations is the lesser of $10,500 or 5 percent of gross receipts for the year. Organizations with gross receipts above roughly $1,095,000 face $105 per day up to a maximum of approximately $54,500. These figures are periodically adjusted for inflation.13Internal Revenue Service. Annual Exempt Organization Return – Penalties for Failure to File
The worst consequence is automatic revocation. Any tax-exempt organization that fails to file its required annual return for three consecutive years automatically loses its 501(c) status. Revocation takes effect on the filing due date of the third missed return.14Internal Revenue Service. Automatic Revocation of Exemption Once revoked, income becomes taxable and, for 501(c)(3) organizations, donors can no longer claim charitable deductions. Reinstatement requires filing a new exemption application. Small volunteer-run nonprofits are most vulnerable here: a few missed years and the exemption is gone.
The FEC calculates civil fines based on four factors: whether the report was election-sensitive, whether it was merely late or never filed, the level of financial activity involved, and the committee’s history of prior violations. Each prior violation in the current or preceding two-year election cycle increases the fine by 25 percent. For missed 48-hour notices, the penalty is $183 per untimely notice plus 10 percent of the unreported contribution amount, subject to the same 25 percent escalator.15Federal Election Commission. Calculating Administrative Fines An election-sensitive report that remains unfiled within four days of an election is treated as “not filed” rather than “late,” which substantially increases the penalty.
Organizations that intentionally provide false donor information or deliberately evade disclosure face the steepest consequences from both agencies, including potential criminal referrals.