It’s December, which means you’ve probably started getting requests for donations from worthy causes. Here in the U.S., the income tax rules and the holiday spirit both nudge in the same direction: give what you can, before January 1.

Here are three tips for making gifts that matter. (And matter they do, no matter the size!)

From Flickr user Alexandra Campo

Tip #1: Understand the tax rules.

If you choose to itemize deductions on your income tax return and you want to include your charitable contributions in the mix, then it’s important to follow the guidelines that the law, and the IRS, have established:

• the organization must be eligible (usually it will say so in the materials);
• you’ll need a receipt or some other documentation of the amount;
• and the gift must be made before the 1st of January to go on this year’s tax return.

There are other, more complicated, rules about larger gifts and in-kind donations. And if you don’t itemize deductions, you still get some credit in the standard deduction. These are calculated using the giving habits of all non-itemizing households. Check the IRS site if there’s anything unusual about what you’re planning to do.

Tip #2: Choose wisely.

Maybe you’re getting a lot of requests, more than you can afford to give. How do you get through the thicket of year-end appeals that tug at your generosity? If you don’t have a personal philanthropy plan, you can make a simple one:

• Decide on an amount you’re willing, and able, to give. The average household donates about 2 percent of disposable income each year.
• Consider the organizations you already know, and know you want to support, so you can decide how much to give to each of them.  Then you’ll know how much you might have left over to respond to new requests.
• If you’re thinking of giving to a new organization, ask yourself “What does this organization do?” and “Do I admire how they do it?” With nearly 2 million nonprofits at work in the U.S., there are lots to choose from.  Looking at websites, reading fundraising appeals, and searching online to see what others have said about the group are good ways to see how strongly the goals, and the methods, appeal to you.

Tip #3: Maximize.

Financial data—the sort of information many charity “watchdogs” focus in on—can only take you so far.  Some causes are hard to administer, others are hard to raise money for.  Spending less than counterpart organizations doesn’t necessarily mean greater efficiency, it may just mean a different approach to the problem.

There are some things donors can do to help put the maximum resources to work, though:

• Respond quickly to requests, especially to renewal notices.  It costs money to prepare mailings so a quick response, even if it’s a “not this year,” is doing the organization a favor.
• Consider making fewer, larger gifts. That will focus your support on program work, not processing costs.
• Positive you won’t ever support Organization X? Ask them to take you off the mailing list so they won’t waste their money on appeals addressed to you.

Finding the money to build stronger, healthier, more lively communities is hard work. With a little preparation and some thought, your year-end gifts can support that work and make an important difference for causes and organizations you care about.

We’re partnering with NextGen:Charity for this year’s leaders in nonprofits and philanthropy innovation conference, November 18-19 in the heart of Times Square. Our founder and executive director Ami Dar will speak at the conference, and our blog readers can register for a discounted rate.

The conference is oriented towards leaders of the world’s top nonprofits and “aimed to help you run your organization more effectively and efficiently, and connect with donors and your community more powerfully.” Other speakers will include our friend Nancy Lublin, founder of DoSomething.org and author of Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business; Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook; and Scott Harrison, founder and president of charity:water.

To learn more about speakers, workshops, and attendees, click here. And if you want to be there yourself, buy your ticket through this link for 20% off the standard entry rate.

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

Almost everyone has felt the effects of the less than stellar economic performance in the first half of this year. This is no less true for the majority of nonprofit organizations as seen in GuideStar’s report on The Effect of The Economy on the Nonprofit Sector for the first half of 2010 released last week.

Nonprofit organizations have been particularly affected this year on two fronts. With unemployment rates barely moving and the number of people coming off of jobless benefits rising, folks have increasingly turned to local community organizations to help fill the gap in services that they can no longer afford. Sixty-three percent of surveyed organizations reported an increase in demand for their services between January 1, 2010 and May 31, 2010. At the same time, more than 40% of organizations reported a decrease in donations and other funding streams. The strain on nonprofits has been so high that 17% of organizations had to cut programs and services and 8% said they were in imminent danger of closing.

From flickr user jasoon (Creative Commons)

If you’ve been considering donating to an organization whose work you support, you might want to consider donating now. You can find financial information on the nonprofit of your choice at GuideStar.org.

If you’re worried about the nonprofits in your community but not currently in a position to donate, there are other ways to help. About a third of organizations reported that they have increased their reliance on volunteers as a way to support their programmatic work and not cut services. You can search for a local volunteer opportunity here — and remember, volunteering is a great asset in career development if you find yourself temporarily out of work.

–

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

Book cover image from Amazon.com

How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist offers hundreds of ideas for anyone with a surplus of energy to commit to good works. Constructed from the doer’s point of view, the emphasis is on the huge variety of ways anyone can recognize a need “and find a way to fill it.”

There’s an engaging autobiographical quality about Nicole Bouchard Boles’ book. She reports its origins in curiosity about how to make good use of her time while pregnant with her first child — and finding great satisfaction (and a little personal prep) in serving as a baby snuggler at a nearby hospital. The lists of strategies and resources that follow each of the eleven chapters draw on the research she did to find ways to anyone can use time, connections, talents and even trash to make the world a better place. The entries range from the familiar (Habitat for Humanity, say, or our own Idealist.org) to the wonderfully obscure and specialized. A bonus: these last will might inspire a reader to start a personal search for the absolutely perfect form of philanthropy that can match an interest, a hobby, or the dream of a lifetime.

When surveys ask people why they haven’t been more active as volunteers, a common answer is “Well, nobody asked me.” Perhaps the most important message in How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist is “Don’t wait to be asked.” In less than 200 pages, the book demonstrates pretty conclusively that there’s needs to be met, and satisfactions to be had, from looking around to find your own niche as a philanthropist.

Some of the suggestions really are simplicity at its simplest: play the word games at FreeRice.com daily and your small distraction contributes to a steady flow of nourishment to some of the world’s hungriest people. And some provide useful and good humored reminders that some things may not be quite so simple after a more careful look: a list of ways to prepare household goods before dropping them off at the donation site will be useful to all but the most conscientious. (The list, on page 76, includes not just washing and airing clothes but sorting books by category to “save a volunteer a lot of work” on the receiving end.)

You can order How to Be an Everyday Philanthropist here, on Amazon.com. (The book was published by Workman Publishing in 2009).
[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

"Calculator," by Flickr user Anssi Koskinen (Creative Commons)

There are two routes to becoming a philanthropist.

You can play a real-world version of Monopoly, gather up all the railroads and the dark-blue leases and then flip the board over and start playing Give-it-all-away. (Note to Parker Bros.: You’re welcome to the idea of marketing a version of this venerable game that models generosity on one side of the board and acquisitiveness on the other.)

Or you can sit down with a blank sheet of paper and make yourself a plan for personal philanthropy. Having a plan is all it takes. Philanthropists come in all sizes, shapes and colors. They are the people who think carefully about what kind of community and what kind of world we should share. Once they’ve done that, these people are in a stronger position to put energy, attention and money to work to move things in that direction.

Oh no, you might say, these days I don’t have enough money to make that kind of thinking worth bothering with. I’ll just give what I can, when somebody asks, and hope I’m making a difference.

Well, the reports from people who have made personal philanthropy plans suggest there are good reasons for making a plan even when the amounts of time and money you have to think about are small. Here are a few:

• You can start with the kinds of change you want to see happen, the causes you want to advance. Then you can choose a moment to check out organizations that can help you multiply the effect of your volunteer time or your donations. (Idealist.org is, obviously, one good place to start exploring these possibilities.)
• Once you find organizations that match your goals, you can focus your philanthropy—of whatever size and form—on them. Everyone who studies nonprofit finances says fewer larger gifts and genuinely committed volunteers are the keys to efficiency and effectiveness. And those are outcomes every philanthropist wants to see.
• And—a surprisingly important result for many people who have followed this route—you’ll have a strong and respectful answer when you’re asked to contribute to a cause or organization that isn’t part of your plan. You can say to a friend, or to someone who interrupts your dinner with a fund-raising call (grrrrr!), “I respect the work you’re doing but I have a plan for what I can give this year and I’m sorry that it doesn’t have room for anything more right now.” If you have any enthusiasm for the cause at all, you can add something like “If you send me some information about your work, I’ll put it in the file so when I’m thinking about next year I’ll be able to remember your ideas.”

If you become a philanthropist—by the simple step of making up your own plan for how and where to give—you gain confidence that you’re supporting the causes you care most about, you maximize the effect of your gifts, and you have a ready-made way to turn away appeals that might otherwise make you uncomfortable. In the list of ways to do a little bit more, this one seems like a slam dunk.

If you’d like to share your personal philanthropic plan with someone, you can send it to putnam@idealist.org; we might even do a follow-up post with some examples (with your permission, of course).

This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]

By Flickr user woodley wonderworks (Creative Commons)

A little bit more.

No need to retell the tale of crisis and concern here. The challenges facing nations on every continent will take big responses, the kind of thing only governments, giant development NGOs, and international assistance organizations can do. But the present crisis is also made up of millions of small crises, happening to schools, community services, churches, theaters, families, museums, and libraries everywhere.

If you listen to the politicians and pundits, the problems are of such magnitude and complexity that they require solutions beyond the boundaries of everyday life.

I would argue that while you and I can’t do much about what’s needed in the big responses, but we can make a big difference down the block, across town, or (using our keyboards) anywhere in the world. This is the time for each of us to do a little bit more. Positive action in the face of our current challenges doesn’t require anything extraordinary.

In the coming weeks, we’ll write several posts about the “little somethings” that people and organizations in our networks are doing to respond to the needs around them — things that, if done by many people all around the world, add up to make a big impact. If you have an example to share, please comment on this posting, or write to us at putnam@idealist.org to let us know.

In the meantime, here are a few ideas you might consider:

• If you’re in a cold climate like I am, look in the back corners of your closet for serviceable winter gear that you aren’t likely to need. Donate anything you find to a homeless shelter.
• Think about the organizations you’ve made a contribution to in the last few months. Pick out one or two and send a second small check (or make another donation online). If their contributions from others are down by a few percentage points, a small amount from you will be a welcome addition to the bank account, and a boost to morale.
• Scan the organizations in your community with a listing on Idealist and look for volunteer requests that fit your interests and your available time. Many groups can use a hand for a short-term project while others will be looking for just an hour or so a week, at a time that suits your schedule.
• Feel a little more flamboyant? Pick a cause or an organization that you know could use a bit of extra help right now and connect through FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn (or whatever networking site you use) to organize your friends to stretch a little and help out. (Be sure to check in with the organization first to be sure you’ve calibrated your idea in a way that will really help and not be too much of a distraction.)

And please do drop us a line to let us know how you’re helping to do just a little bit more.

[This blog entry appeared on an older version of Idealist; any broken links are a result of having re-launched our site in Fall 2010.]