How Do You Find Charities That Accept Car Donations?

Donating a car in Wisconsin is something that more and more people are doing. Having started during the mid-1980s, it is now a huge lifeline for many charitable organizations, providing them with a way to finance the vital services that they provide. To encourage more people to make such donations, the government has put measures in place to enable donors to deduct their donation from their income taxes. Naturally, there are some caveats attached to this, but this has further increased the number of people who make donations.

Choosing the Charity

If you are one of the many people with an old vehicle that can be donated you may be wondering how to choose between the charities that accept car donations. Determining this, at its heart, is a personal decision because only you can decide which type of charitable purpose you feel is worthy of your support. However, there are some hints and tips that will make your search for the right charity a lot easier.

Check the Tax Registration

The first thing you must look into is the tax registration of the charity that you are considering. In order for you to be able to deduct the value of your donation from your taxes, it must have been donated to a 501(c)3 registered charity. Most charities will list this on their website, but do also navigate to the IRS website to determine whether they really are.

Check the Efficiency

Another key factor is that you make sure that most of the value of your donation actually goes directly towards funding the services being provided by the organization. This is known as the charity's "efficiency", which is generally expressed as a percentage. This percentage indicates how many cents of every dollar you give actually goes towards providing the services, and not to other expenses, such as management and advertisement. An efficiency rating of at least 85% is recommended. This information can be obtained through various online sources.

Check Whether You Are Dealing with a Broker

The final thing to look into is that you actually donate your vehicle directly to a charity. There are a lot of brokers out there that are happy to handle the donation process for you. However, they are for profit organizations, which means that they get to keep a part of the money raised from the donation. The result is that much less funds go to the charity.