Posts Tagged ‘donating’

Can we do this thing on an installment plan?

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Maybe you like the idea of supporting your favorite cause on a regular basis, but you don’t want the hassle of sending them a check every four weeks. Luckily, some organizations have taken this complaint into consideration. With recurring donations, you can make sure your charity of choice gets a steady flow of aid without constantly having to remember to shell out the cash.

Recurring donations can be set up over the Internet, and they just require a credit card number, an email account, and a billing address. You select a charity and enter the amount you want to give each month (which can be changed or canceled at any time) and that amount is charged to your card. If you choose to give money to an organization with a set monetary goal and that goal is reached (i.e., the organization doesn’t need donations anymore), you’ll receive a notification via email, and you can select a new charity if you wish. What’s more, with recurring donations you set up an account where an online record is kept of all your transactions to date, so it’s simple to find appropriate documentation when you’re applying for tax deductions.

So if you have one favorite charity and you just want to keep sending your money there, recurring donations can be a quick, easy, and convenient way to keep giving.

How do you decide whether to give anonymously?

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Ultimately, there is no correct answer to whether or not you should attach your name to your donations – it’s entirely a personal choice. However, there are valid arguments for either option.

People who want their donations to bear their names often want the recognition that comes with giving, but sometimes there’s a deeper motive. By making your donation public knowledge, you’re setting an example for others – saying, in effect, that this is a worthy cause to which your peers can and ought to donate. To some people, giving anonymously can feel like they’re somehow ashamed of their donation or that they don’t want to own up to it. Public donors want to give the exact opposite impression.

People who do decide to give anonymously often believe they are being more genuinely altruistic by doing so. If they give privately, they get no recognition for giving, and some people think this makes their motives more pure. In addition, some people who want to give outside their own foundation or organization choose to donate to other causes anonymously, basically in order to avoid the question, “If your organization is so great, why are you giving to another one, instead of sending all you can spare to your own cause?” (The answer, of course, is that there are always multiple causes worthy of attention, and you can’t necessarily be involved on an administrative level in all of them.) Since you’re already doing good by giving in the first place, choosing whether to be anonymous or not is basically a win-win situation – just pick whatever option, in your opinion, makes a good thing even better.

A Matching Grant is…

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

A matching grant is a pledge to give a certain amount of money to an organization if it raises that same amount from other donors. Matching grants are meant to motivate others into charitable giving. For example, a wealthy philanthropist might tell a nonprofit that if they raise $250,000, then he will match it – doubling the total contribution.