Charity Car Donation Benefits

Today if you find yourself with an extra vehicle or an unwanted used car, boat, motorcycle or truck  and are considering a charity car donation you can donate it to one of many charitable organizations from the National Kidney Foundation to the American Red Cross. This will provide you with several benefits.

The charitable organization resells most vehicles at wholesale auctions if they're not going to use the vehicle in their service.  This provides added cash for the charity which becomes more important as expensive disasters like Hurricane Katrina can and will drain many charity budgets.  The Red Cross and the Salvation Army spent more funds than any other charity during Hurricane Katrina.  Your vehicle, whether it is a car, truck or van can provide many hot meals, blankets, needed volunteers, training, emergency shelters, etc.    According to Consumer Reports the charity with the highest pass through of donations to the recipient was the Salvation Army with more than 80% of all donations going to those in need.  (It is important to determine the amount or percentage of pass through when choosing which charity to donate your vehicle to so that most of your donation goes where it is supposed to go.  Some charities will surprise you with a 20% or less pass through.  That means the executives and company are basically not really a not for profit charity and are getting rich off charity car donations and/or other donations.  We must all make sure the recipients get as much as possible of our car donations.

You get a big tax write-off or tax deduction.  Through the IRS, you get to deduct the wholesale sale price when your car donation is resold at a wholesale auction.  The charity you choose will pick up the car or other vehicle usually with a tow truck and then sell it at auction.  Within a week or so after the sale, you'll receive the proper forms along with the sale price to submit for a tax deduction.

You get the satisfaction of having helped those less fortunate than you are.  And maybe the car you donated was given to a single mother with a sick child who  has no transportation.  Maybe your car was sold and the proceeds have gone to help build a homeless shelter, a drug rehab center or to give someone a hand.  Maybe it will go to pay for counselors and psychologists for pregnant teenagers or  maybe abused spouses.  Maybe it will go to feeding families that lost everything in a flood, tornado or hurricane.  Whatever the case, your car donation, like any other charitable donation, will go to help someone in need and it will make you feel good that you were able to help in some way. When you donate your car to charity you will benefit in many ways. A charity car donation is becoming more common as people discover the nice car donation tax deduction they can get.