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Do you come up with a percentage of gross income to budget for all donations?
I try to aim for 10% of my gross income (although I don't track it too closely, so I don't always reach that goal every year).
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I consider certain donations somewhat obligatory such as those for supporting your church, child's school, etc.; but with respect to non-obligatory donations where there are ad hoc requests from neighbors, friends and acquaintances, do you vet requests and donate based on the worthiness of the cause and/or to be well thought of by the requestor?
I'm not donating to anything I don't consider a worthy charity.
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Does tax deductibility impact the amount of your donations?
Of course. It helps me donate more.
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Do you think this will change (or has it changed) upon retirement?
Since my income will be reduced, my annual giving will have to go down, too. But my estate is willed to charity, so with luck my favorite charities will get more when I'm gone.
And donor-advised funds are wonderful, provided you can meet the initial monetary requirement to set one up. They not only make it possible to donate significant amounts anonymously, they simplify your tax paperwork considerably (because the only transaction you need to track for tax purposes in the donation to the DAF, not the subsequent gifts from it).
I keep it simple....
I know who/what groups/causes I want to give to....and then decide -- IF and how much I can afford to give.
It's not that complicated (for me anyway).
^ agree.
I decide based on how they use contributions for the intended need they purports to help.
For example, in the past i have used food pantries, and almost all of the food DOES go to needy who apply for aid.
I also support the local Police Benevolent Association. One year when their anual "gimme letter" ( as i call them) came around, all i had to spend was giving $5. So that was all they got, but it was $5 more than they had before i donated. If everyone donated only $5 in this town, theyd have a tidy sum.
I dont donate to places with high overhead costs, even if tgey seem worthy.
One year, fir example, i donated to Red Cross and they had a few million donations for ( i think Katrina aid), but only spent 10% on actually helping the victims. I stopped any donatins then. I wasnt the only one who was up in arms over that one. Hapf the nations donors were too....
I also USED to volunteer for Red Cross blood drives, until i caught on to a hypocrisy in it i wont go into.
I have also volunteered in the hospital medical records department.
Im looking to volunteer in the hospital pharmacy, but ran into the ",we have too many already".
Id rather donate time than money, as time is often needed as much as money, and the more volunteers they have, the less paid staff they need.win win.
Before retiring, I donated to charities through a workplace giving program with automatic payroll deductions. We were allowed to choose 5 charities. I chose those that were close to my heart and had low administrative costs given their mission and that were local. Since I am not religious but grew up poor, I chose charities that dealt with the homeless, domestic violence, hunger, etc. and at least one animal charity. These were the bulk of my contributions and a certain percentage of my salary. Other giving totaled less than $500 annually to include donating ~ $5 at the checkout counter of stores that had charity drives, participating in my work organization's food drive and "adoption" of needy familes during the holidays, making a donation in honor of a person who had passed, and miscellaneous requests. If I don't care for the cause, I do not donate. But I did not have lots of friends and neighbors asking me for donations, only mail solicitations that can be easily ignored.
But there have been years when siblings got sick and/or lost their jobs and needed assistance. I stopped my payroll deductions and helped my family instead. And I have several nieces and newphews who are struggling so am fairly generous at Christmas. I was able to itemize my deductions and save on taxes for the payroll deductions and some of the miscellaneous charity donations. Not so of course for the family assistance and with the new tax law changes I will be taking the standard deduction and not itemizing. This may impact my giving. And I'm single, never had children, and have always been in the 25% or 28% tax bracket and will also be in that bracket in retirement. In my mind, that is a form of giving to charity.
Recently retired with a reduced income and having just finished helping out a brother, I have not figured out my future giving strategy. My original plan was to do some volunteer work but not sure I want the structure to have to be at a certain place at a certain time. It sounds too much like work.
I try to keep my giving in line with my travel budget although giving has exceeded travel the last few years. In 2017 my charitable donations were 17% of my AGI- but how can I post form Business Class airline lounges in Europe and then claim I can't donate a lot because I'm a retired widow? I've been blessed.
A lot of it is the church pledge. We're working on getting membership up but that's a slow process and in the meantime we have to pay the mortgage. Many of our members are scraping by. I'm not.
The rest is an amount I allocate every month from the budget and that's to be used for whatever comes up- a friend or relative doing an athletic event, a GoFundMe I trust (even though it's not deductible), anything else that strikes me as important. I am grateful I no longer have to pretend I care about the United Way. The major charities don't get any of my money. I do donate to a local shelter for people fleeing domestic abuse.
I donate a lot of time to the church and yes, it helps to be close enough to the charity to see what's being done with your money.
Finally, I do have a donor-advised fund, which I set up when I received a signing bonus at my last job. What I LOVE about that fund is that I can donate anonymously. It's still deductible- you tell the to write the check and as long as it's a legitimate charity they will- and you can request that they tell the recipient that the donor wishes to remain anonymous. I've sent a couple of $1,000 checks to a charity that got aggressive and called me looking for more donations after I sent them a check. Must drive them nuts now to get checks for $1,000 and not be able to ask for more.
I never heard of that. What a great idea. It annoys me no end to give and then get endless requests for more flooding my mailbox.
I also USED to volunteer for Red Cross blood drives, until I caught on to a hypocrisy in it I won't go into.
I'm not a fan of the Red Cross and haven't given them a dime, but please reconsider your decision not to donate blood. Do you have alternative blood banks in your area? We have Community Blood Center here and I was giving there regularly till I went to India in March; now I'm deferred till next March. Because I'm retired and have the time, I was going there monthly and giving platelets or plasma and red blood cells- it takes a couple of hours. Five more months to go till I can donate again!
The science geek in me is fascinated by the fact that they still haven't found a way to make artificial blood products in the lab, which tells you how remarkable some of the structures in our body are. They still need humans and they defer people for an increasing number of reasons, cutting the pool of eligible donors down.
I never heard of that. What a great idea. It annoys me no end to give and then get endless requests for more flooding my mailbox.
Donor advised funds offer a number of advantages for the philanthropically-inclined. They facilitate anonymous donations, allow you to set up recurring gifts so you can automate your giving, they simplify tax records (you only need to keep track of the contributions to the fund, not the payouts, for tax purposes), they allow you to bunch several years' donations so you can itemize one year and take the standard deduction in other years or let you contribute a big one-time gain (such as money from an inheritance or proceeds from the sale of a business), and they can accept all sorts of assets (such as shares of appreciated stock or real estate) as well as cash. The big drawbacks are they charge a fee to manage the account (and the fee gets larger the more money you have in the DAF), and have significant minimum amounts needed to set up an account and for subsequent gifts from the fund (Schwab Charitable, the DAF provider I use, requires a minimum initial investment of $5,000, and a minimum grant to a charity of $50. Some other providers, such as Vanguard, have higher limits.)
We make two small donations to two different churches. We'd love to donate more but, we support my mother-in-law 100% financially. Due to her location outside of the US, we're not able to deduct her support as a dependent unfortunately and over the last 18 years, it really adds up. Once she passes, we'll be able to pick up our donations to the church and mostly, our local church. We do a ton of outreach so it feels good to support something other than the church itself i.e. a massive, look-at-us building. Our church is extremely modest. I also like to give to the Salvation Army - they do a great job and their overhead costs are modest.
On a personal level, I prefer to give to local organizations that are helping local people, or causes I personally care about.
We have some local faith-based organizations that do great work providing food, Christmas gifts, housing, etc., to the local needy. I'd much prefer to give there, even though I'm not religious, than a large, faceless organizations where I have no clue where the dollars will be sent or how much will be chewed up in overhead.
Bingo. I don’t have kids so it’s all going to charity when I pass one day anyway, but until then I need my money for my life goals and pursuits. There’s nothing to spare. I literally can’t make another movie without money and since filmmaking is my career passion, I’m the charitable cause for now. If one day I make it big, I’m sure there will be extra money and I would consider the right causes but I can’t imagine giving anything now. I give Wikipedia a few bucks per year since I use it constantly.
The federal government decides how much I give, it's the portion of my federal income taxes they spend on entitlement programs. I don't go beyond that.
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