Do you donate to charity? If so, how much a year? (sale, items)

[NJBest]

Originally Posted by Bmachina

Charity does not always involve donating money. Pulling over to help and elderly lady shovel her drive in the winter, can do worlds of good. You might just be the only person she talks to all week...

I think most people find it easier to part with money than time. You control how much money you have in life. You don't control how much time you have in life. That being said, if you're generous with your time, that's excellent and I commend anyone who is (even though it would be the less frugal route to go).

[TabulaRasa]

Donating my time is usually more feasible for me, and it's enjoyable.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by oaktonite

Far better? What actual difference is there beyond the fact that the accumulated pot is invested exclusively in the proprietary mutual funds of the operator?

Local foundations (Usually)
1) DO NOT give you a choice of investments
2) Have VERY High expenses
3) Have Poor performance / investment boards
4) FORCE your giving to certain directions
5) Take your proceeds after termination and apply how THEY want
6) Often have corrupt / questionable management and boards. ('insider schemes' by high flying lawyers and community 'leaders' (?).
7) No automated gifting
8) No computer accessible gifting
9) I found my Foundation continually missing my gifting dates that were to tap 'matching' funds
10) My foundation was NOT funding as I expressed. (They would happen to 'leave-off' my designations, and funds would only flow to General Accounts of my charities).

After 20 yrs in a very 'nice' foundation, I am EXTENSIVELY happy to have moved to one of the 'options; listed with a 'big box' broker. MUCH easier, and my gifting gets to the correct specified needs. AND I get receipt / acknowledgment from Both the Charity and my gifting acct.

YMMV, but my foundation SEEMED ver competent, until I thoroughly dug into why my gifting was being delayed / mis-sent.

So Sad. (I would much rather have stayed local, but...)

[Pitt Chick]

Not sure what a 'local foundation' is! So all the negatives you mention makes me question why you would even go through them.

We just give directly to the charities of our choice.

[hodgemo2]

I donate both time and money to animal rescue. There is a no kill shelter near my house that I spend 2 hours at every Sunday, as well as helping with their yearly fundraiser. For the money aspect, I often spread it out over various animal shelters, usually depending on those that pull from high kill animal controls. Almost all are local, though I have been donating to some in New York (not local for me) since the NYACC is TERRIBLE.

I'm probably on target to donate 5% of so of my gross income this year.

[oaktonite]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Local foundations (Usually)

I'll try to offer some insight from many years of experience directing a local 501(c)(3) and service as an officer of a regional community fund.

1) DO NOT give you a choice of investments

IRS regulations require that fund balances be independently managed. You can't tell Fidleity or Vanguard where to invest your funds either. Managers at whichever is the back-end fund will make that call.

2) Have VERY High expenses

CF's tend to have very LOW expenses in that senior officers and almost all staff are typically volunteers. Neither Fidelity nor Vanguard has any volunteers. CF's do have expenses of course, but can often arrange for the donation of basic supplies and services. Fidelity and Vanguard, not so much.

3) Have Poor performance / investment boards

Easy for you to say. Again in compliance with IRS regulations, funds would typically be managed by independent professionals, such as those at a large area bank or at a recognized private asset management firm.

4) FORCE your giving to certain directions

What? CF's typically comprise dozens of component funds with dozens of different missions. It is not uncommon to feature some handful of these in donor mailouts, PR's, and event literature. Is that what you are talking about? Otherwise, each component fund is constrained at its creation to certain types of grants. There is no way to "force" any donor to contribute to a particular fund nor to "force" a particular fund out of its established little box.

5) Take your proceeds after termination and apply how THEY want

Also pursuant to IRS regulations. If a donation is to be tax-deductible when made, the donor may not retain any residual interest in the asset being donated. Also, the component funds themselves may not be permanent. While it may be quite a while away, an event-certain per conditions set out in law must exist to define the legal end of any fund. Undisbursed assets in a fund when it does eventually expire are moved into the CF's general fund for community support.

6) Often have corrupt / questionable management and boards. ('insider schemes' by high flying lawyers and community 'leaders' (?).

LOL! Probably all born in Kenya.

7) No automated gifting

The word "giving" already exists and would easily have sufficed. Meanwhile, some CF's offer direct deposit and some do not. YMMV.

8) No computer accessible gifting

Huh? You must be reporting from the outer boondocks. I "gifted" $250 while I was typing this.

9) I found my Foundation continually missing my gifting dates that were to tap 'matching' funds

Not a single such event has been part of my experience. On one occasion, a draft was lost (on the recipient's end, obviously) and the loss was not caught until the following tax year. Because we had a record of the draft's having been issued in the prior tax year, we simply reissued it with its original date and messengered that to the recipient. This was after consulting with the legal people of course.

10) My foundation was NOT funding as I expressed. (They would happen to 'leave-off' my designations, and funds would only flow to General Accounts of my charities).

Such activity constitutes fraud. You should have sued them.

After 20 yrs in a very 'nice' foundation, I am EXTENSIVELY happy to have moved to one of the 'options; listed with a 'big box' broker. MUCH easier, and my gifting gets to the correct specified needs.

You've succeeded in introducing a middle-man that has no actual function while assuring that managers who do charge a fee have replaced managers who do not charge a fee in exchange for having no more control over things than you had to begin with.

AND I get receipt / acknowledgment from Both the Charity and my gifting acct.

Above certain trivial minimums, such receipts are mandatory under law. Every CF and charity provides them.

YMMV, but my foundation SEEMED ver competent, until I thoroughly dug into why my gifting was being delayed / mis-sent. So Sad. (I would much rather have stayed local, but...)

I haven't been convinced that the word "thoroughly" applies here at all.

[purehuman]

Do I donate to charity, and if so, how much in a year?..I don't keep count...I just give as much as I can (a lot are meals), or boots, clothes, dogfood. I give to the many people I know who can really use it. I don't "donate" to any one charity, but I do give to those in need almost daily.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by oaktonite

I'll try to offer some insight from many years of experience directing a local 501(c)(3) and service as an officer of a regional community fund.

....

HaHa... You sound like my EX-Board Pres. ... Enjoy your 'duties'.

P.S. For those looking into putting funds in a CF. Be wise... Worked fine for me for 20 yrs, then the director left and all positions were backfilled with new minions. Fortunately I only stayed long enough to see my acct decline by a few hundred K $. Since then... (with MUCH wrangling and distain from CF...) I joined a 'real' (non-biased) administrator & my success in gifting AND investment returns has been markedly BETTER.
Important to me... my funds and process will be successful in perptuity, and those projects I have supported for over 40 yrs will continue as recipiants. The CF had an 'Agenda' (sad, but most do (I work in the MPA world and with many communities))

YMMV

[joe moving]

we donate maybe 1% of our gross . It is not much.

I donate my time to some non profits, but again it's not much. I don't know if "alternative" investing counts, but we have a lot (relative to what we have) tied up in co-ops, CDFIs, non-profits, local businesses. It's not charity, but it's putting our money into causes we believe in.

I feel like I do what I can. we try to do a little more each year.

[totsuka]

I don't because I have always worked hard in my life and never depended on charity. Also, I think the "charity industry" has become a huge scam on America/Americans the last 40 years. So many of these "charities" pay themselves very well and just play on people's emotions or guilt to get funds. It makes me wonder sometimes with all the various charities and churches why we still have homeless people, massive welfare cases etc...where is all the money going?