The GiveWell Blog

7 tips for giving efficiently

If you’re planning on giving to charity this holiday season, there are a few simple steps you can take that can save a lot of money – allowing you to give more at the same cost to yourself – as well as reduce hassle.

1. Don’t wait until the last minute. Many donors wait until the very end of the calendar year to give. (Over 20% of our 2011 money moved, excluding gifts of $100,000 and more, came through in the last three days of the year alone.) Doing this will make it very difficult to execute some of the steps below (such as giving appreciated stock). And if something unexpected happens (as it often does with large credit card donations), you may have little time to react.

We recommend setting a target date of December 24 or earlier for finalizing your gift (for a week’s cushion).

2. Try to get a tax benefit. Details vary by country and personal situation, but a tax deduction can allow you to give much more to charity at the same cost to yourself. (That said, as discussed below, we believe it is more important to give to the most effective possible charity than to get the maximum tax benefit.)

Our #1 charity, Against Malaria Foundation, offers tax deductibility to citizens of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Our current #2 charity is a U.K. charity only, but U.S. donors can get a tax deduction for giving to GiveWell for the support of SCI.

If you’re in another country, you may wish to look into groups in your country that provide the service of (a) taking deductible donations themselves; (b) transferring the funds (minus fees) to charities abroad. While they can charge substantial fees, you may still come out ahead after tax considerations.

3. Avoid the large transaction fees and delays associated with large online donations. When donating via credit card, you will almost always be charged standard credit card processing fees. For donations under $5000, our feeling is that it’s worth paying the fees to avoid the hassle (both for you and the charity) of another donation method. But fees on a $5000 donation will generally exceed $100. In addition, credit card transactions of $5000 and up are often flagged by credit card companies (though a call to the credit card company can generally resolve the situation quickly).

This year, Google Checkout stopped offering fee-free processing, and we were unable to find a viable alternative with lower fees. Therefore, we are recommending that people giving $5000 and up consider writing a check or making a bank transfer. (Details)

4. Give appreciated stock. In the U.S., if you give stock to a charity, neither you nor the charity will have to pay taxes on capital gains (as you would if you sold the stock yourself). If you have stock that you acquired for $1000 (and has a cost basis of $1000) but is now worth $2000, you can give the stock to charity, take a deduction for $2000, and not have to pay capital gains tax on the $1000 of appreciation. This can result in significant savings. (More at Vanguard’s write-up on this topic.)

Taking advantage of this requires having some of your net worth invested in appreciated stock (or other securities), knowing (or being able to obtain) the cost basis of such securities, and arranging to transfer the stock directly to a charity, which is generally a fairly easy process, but varies from broker to broker; waiting until December 31 can be especially problematic if you’re trying to do this.

GiveWell can take direct transfers of stock for the support of our top charities, so let us know if you’re interested in this. A more robust way to smooth the process of giving appreciated securities is to take advantage of a donor advised fund, discussed immediately below.

5. Look into donor-advised funds to make the process smoother and more consistent year-to-year. Donor advised funds allow donors to make a charitable donation (and get a tax deduction) now, while deciding which charity they’d like to support later. The donation goes into a fund that is “advised” by the donor, and the donor may later recommend a grant from the fund to the charity of his/her choice.

We see a couple of advantages to this setup. One advantage is that you can separate your “decision date” (the date on which you decide which charity you’d like to support) from your “transaction date.” That means that if you aren’t ready to decide which charity to support yet, you can still get started on the process of transferring funds and getting a tax deduction for the appropriate year. Another advantage is that if you change the charity you support from year to year, you’re still working with the same partner when it comes to transactions, so the process for e.g. donating stock will not change from year to year. Donor advised funds are often set up to easily accept donated stock, whereas charities may or may not be.

Many large investment companies – Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab – offer donor advised funds. They generally charge relatively modest management fees.

We do not recommend delaying this year’s donation while you look into donor advised funds. Donor advised funds can make giving more convenient over the long term, year-to-year, but you can get all the advantages of efficient giving this year without one. We also maintain our own donor-advised fund for donors interested in supporting our recommended charities.

6. Consider the political environment. If you believe that your tax rate is likely to be higher in 2013 than in 2012, you may wish to give at the very beginning of 2013 rather than the very end of 2012.

We’ll likely be counting donations made in the first week or so of 2013 toward our 2012 money moved (we’ve made similar adjustments in the past).

7. Choose your charity wisely. Saving money on taxes and transaction fees can be significant, approaching or exceeding a 50% increase in the amount you’re able to give. However, we believe that your choice of charity is a much larger factor in how much good your giving accomplishes.

Our charity recommendations make it possible to support outstanding, thoroughly vetted organizations – which we’ve investigated by reviewing academic evidence, interviewing staff, analyzing internal documents, conducting site visits, assessing funding needs, and more – without needing to do your own research. We publicly publish the full details of our process and analysis, so you can spot-check whatever part of our work and reasoning you’d like to.

Final notes.

  • If you support our recommended charities (on the basis of our recommendation) but you don’t give through our website, please use the donation report form to let us know about your gift; doing so helps GiveWell track our impact.
  • We believe that even when dealing with a relatively complicated gift (for example, a gift of stock), it’s possible to give quite quickly and with only minor hassle. The much more difficult challenge is choosing a charity, and we’ve tried to make that easy as well. So we hope you’ll give this season, even if you’re just starting to think about it now; if you’d like more advice or help, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Comments

  • Richard Chappell on November 23, 2012 at 10:29 am said:

    Your “donor-advised fund” link is broken — I think it should start with “www.” instead of “blog.”

  • Артём Власов on November 24, 2012 at 8:09 am said:

    МММ-2012
    mmmrevolution
    Начинай жить, а не существовать для кого-то

  • deeman on December 6, 2012 at 1:35 am said:

    I like GiveWell’s premise for existing so well I, the reclusive one, asked to be included in their email contact list.
    My first thoughts since there do not seem to be a lot of blog posts is that GiveWell needs to get out more and play with the other neighborhood kids, specifically the Better Business Bureau and major media outlets. I am sure a relationship can be formed that will be everybody’s benefit.
    GiveWell might need to lawyer-up. It is hard to feel comfortable about voicing an opinion while constantly looking over your shoulder. So a relationship with a lawyer group like the ACLU might be worth looking into.
    And just posting questions about possibly (see, I can be careful in my wording, too), again possibly, shady organizations, oh, okay… organizations with nebulous effective use of funds and misleading requests for those same funds is, well… not enough. These organizations are blood-suckers in my book and need to be brought down. The only way to do that quickly and decisevly is to have a gov’t investigation. I mean, they have carte blanche to drag you into court and look at your books. And the gov’t would be saving taxpayers money in the long run by running all the scammers out of business. The gov’t ought to do that with website scammers too. I’d almost go ballistic if I heard that my great grandmother lost her life savings and had to move out onto the streets because someone sent her a fake check in return for her house or some such nonsense. A
    Anyway, if the gov’t, bless their hearts, has more on the front burner than they can handle, the NYT, Washington Post,LA Times, Chicago Tribune, etc., etc., should get off their lovey-dovey we-are-the-protectors-of-the-great-unwashed hands and start using their rusty investigative skills and great political publicity machines to out these sham organizations.
    Heck, the organization that takes your car for a breast cancer donation and is run by three Italian family members (CEO, ass’t CEO,and accountant, along with their bimbo girlfriends) supposedly for breast cancer is laughing at us suckers every time they put on a charity golf tournament in their beach house backyard on Long Island.

  • deeman on December 6, 2012 at 1:43 am said:

    So sorry for the long rant and not editing the above post, but I feel better now. Thanks.

  • deeman on December 6, 2012 at 1:54 am said:

    On second thought, many shady organizations could just close up shop, change their name, move across the street, and start over again.

    It might be better to just post all the good ones in each category and if there isn’t one, say “No recommendations.”

    Also GiveWell, and maybe they do already, can post suggestions to organizations on how they can increase their charity rating. I know GiveWell gives every organization a chance to respond, and that is a very good thing.

  • I have always wanted to help other people, beginning with my own family or relatives. Hopefully, there will come a time that I will be able to share anything I have to the needy. Unfortunately, right now, I only earn a few bucks which is only fit for me.

  • Ian Turner on December 10, 2012 at 9:09 pm said:

    Louise,

    Obviously I don’t know anything about your particular situation. However, almost all people in the rich world are well-off by international standards. You can use this online tool to compare your income to those in other countries, adjusted for differences in prices between different places. You may be surprised of where you stand with your “few bucks”, compared to the masses
    elsewhere.

    http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-am-i

    –Ian

Comments are closed.