Spread Out Your Giving

Every year, most of us make charitable contributions to one or more non-profits. Maybe you give to your church, your alma mater, a social services organization, or one of the thousands of agencies of all sizes and descriptions in our country. We make these donations for many reasons.
One benefit of these contributions that we enjoy is that they are generally partially or fully deductible on our federal tax returns. Since many of us get around to thinking about taxes around the end of the year (if that early), oftentimes that means that many of our donations occur in the last week of the year.
Consider making your charitable contributions year round. The organizations that rely on your support make expenditures every day. It makes an agency’s planning more difficult if the preponderance of individual support happens once a year. How easy would it be for you to budget if a third of your income came at year end and you weren’t sure how much it was going to be?
Use a donation website like Network for Good to make your ongoing philanthropy easier. Instead of having to budget for most of your giving at year-end, spread it out over the year and make it part of your regular monthly expenses. It will make it easier and also make philanthropy seem more like something you do every day as part of your routine.