Our charitable giving strategy
March 12, 2018
This is a reader requested post on a subject that’s been percolating for some time.
I say “our strategy”, but PiC trusts me with our money, even when I appear to be giving it away with reckless abandon. (Or maybe that’s how it feels to me, and he knows I’m rarely reckless with money.)
I’ve already talked about my philosophy on charitable giving. We’ve talked about increasing our not-significant giving each year, and I’ve committed to continue doing that this year. It seems like more transparency is in order to keep us on track, and perhaps sharing our thoughts with others would help them, but I’m not sure if others value that part. Let me know if it’s yea or nay?
Here, I’m going to share how we’re structuring our giving this year.
Warning: I’ve never been this organized before, but we’re also not all that organized by objective measures so, lower your expectations please!
NOTE: Cutting off Dad doesn’t mean we’re flush with cash now so that hasn’t had any effect on our giving. We originally needed to stop supporting him because we couldn’t afford it any longer. When we moved, our mortgage and our taxes tripled. YEEK.
First, some things we care about, in random order.
The sub-bullets are more specific about where we direct our giving dollars to support them, we give to the causes we care about most. This isn’t an exhaustive list.
- Human Rights
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- LGBTQA rights
- Literacy & education (supporting teachers, kids from income families). I’m making a commitment to help at least one classroom from Donors Choose per month.
- Reducing hunger (food banks, local and regional)
- Helping abused women and children
- Rescuing animals (but definitely no support for PETA)
- Quality of life
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- Supporting small businesses
- Environmental causes
- Disaster relief
Second, funding.
Most years, I’ve been scraping together money at the end of the year because we’ve had so many commitments on our money that I didn’t prioritize giving at the top of the list. If cash flow was too tight, then I would use the side money I’d earned to fund giving.
My side money is intended to cover blog expenses and savings for Seamus’s veterinary care.
In reality it covers donations (disaster relief or gifts to help a friend out of a tough spot) and a tiny fraction of the blog costs. I’ve been ok with that. I cash flowed Seamus’s food, medications, exams, vaccines and so on. When they’re small and steady costs, we manage ok. I do a LOT of home care rather than running him to the vet for every scrape and abscess because I know enough to judge when I can get him back to normal or when it requires prescription medications.
This year, instead of waiting til the end of the year, I’m taking a deep breath and mentally allocating $100 per month out of our cash flow to give regularly and/or to respond to natural disasters and other unexpected needs that crop up.
Third, scheduling.
Our budget is still a bit in flux since we’re adjusting to the absence of 2nd Household expenses and the now-regular therapy for JB. My aim is to make monthly or every-two-months donations out of our regular cash flow without causing undue frustration for myself or household money disruption. We may have to give up the good cheese this year but we’ll see how this works out.
It took a few years to get used to making monthly IRA contributions instead of annual lump sum contributions and it’d be good to see if this will become routine and easy to absorb. Further down the road, I might want to go the route of the Donor Advised Fund because it appeals to my desire to dedicate the funds out of my operating budget in one go and then distribute as needed from there.
I do lump sum donations after major disasters, when I receive a large lump of money (e.g. bonuses), and at the end of the year. A few of the charities I support have been pushing to get donors onto monthly donations instead of lump sum because then it is easier for them to plan their revenue. I have made the switch for a couple, but haven’t switched everything over since I’m afraid of making it an ongoing commitment if I’m going to be unemployed soon.
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I’ve had similar fears about committing to monthly donations so I’m adding them really slowly.
I think it’s wonderful that you have a strategy to your charitable giving. Ours has been somewhat haphazard. There are particular organizations that we have given to annually as well as disaster-related donations or donations to support a friend as they come up. And before we give to a charitable organization, we check them out (on sites like Charity Navigator) if we don’t have personal experience with them. We have a budget line for charitable giving, but it’s small and we’re trying to increase it. I think it’s a great idea to sit down as a couple and decide together what the priorities are, which is something we haven’t done yet. Thanks for posting this.
Thanks, it’s new for us but I think it really makes sense to have structured giving as we move forward in our wealth building.
No strategy right now! I’ve just been randomly giving ever since DH got re-employed. That means that I sort of randomly gave to like 4 donors choose classrooms this month (March), including the one that wandering scientist is trying to get funded before it expires on Saturday ( https://www.donorschoose.org/project/libros-por-favor/2918979/ ).
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Thanks for the reminder of Cloud’s Donors Choose project, I shared it again.
And it got fully funded! (Woo!)
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YAY!!
No real strategy, I try to aim for a small monthly donation but the last few months has fallen off 🙁 My priorities are disaster relief, animals, women/migrants/youth, education, and I also dabble occasionally in Kiva focusing on women owned enterprises.
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We’re prone to having our giving fall off when it’s sporadic, too, my hope is committing to monthly donations over the course of this year will ingrain it into our budgetary consciousness.
It’s so good that you have a strategy.
Mine is haphazard and usually whoever asks me to donate (like friends who are running a 10km run for a cause) I donate to. In the past it was breast cancer foundation, Medicins Sans Frontier/ Doctors Without Borders, and SPCA (Pets).
I love those causes!
I don’t know that we have a specific strategy at the moment, but we give when we feel there is a need and also at the end of the year to several organizations that resonate with us (eg. rescue mission for the homeless and our county library). I’ve also been trying to give back in other ways outside of monetary donations because I feel it’s important for our kids to see this too.
“I’ve also been trying to give back in other ways outside of monetary donations because I feel it’s important for our kids to see this too.” Yes! I haven’t figured out how to add this to our schedule yet but that’s also important for us to show JB.
Our giving is haphazard (along with when I contribute to our IRA). I give during my work organized fundraising drive (we get to individually contribute to a charity of our choice). The only other place I consistently donate is to the library.
We also go to random dinners/events supporting fundraisers and will give in lump sums to our local food bank, environmental/watershed groups, and human rights organizations.
At the end of last year we almost funded a DAF, but with both of us changing jobs, I didn’t feel financially ready. I should definitely just set it up our donations to be automated even without the DAF.
The DAF really does make more sense to set up when our jobs are more stable.
I can’t help but think there is a potential for real sense of expansion in your charitable giving since so much is freed up from “the absence of 2nd Household expenses.” You’ve got so much more room for maneuver in creating your strategy for giving now. My guess is that it will evolve (especially once your “hangover from last year” is really over).
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Oh how I wish that were true but it’s not. The original impetus for stopping his support was because we literally could not afford it any longer – our mortgage tripled, and so did our taxes, so we’re not in any better position than we were, proportional to our income. 🙁
The emotional reasons that came into play were secondary, though powerful and compelling.
I have a monthly donation budget, although I haven’t sent it out the past 2 months (it rolls over).
I don’t have a good strategy. I try to balance a few things: 1) US-centric donations supporting the country I want us to become (ACLU or similar types of places, Grumpy Rumblings has suggestions on their activism tab). 2) Disaster relief (one off donations) 3) Local/personal donations, so this is for friends that request a donation or the local breed rescue or donations to a health cause affecting someone I know 4) Global health/poverty donations (GiveWell has good research on these).
Number 4 is where I feel my dollars go the furthest, and #1 feels crucial to our nation’s future, so those two are my highest priority. Number 2&3 are the lower priority, but still important. Not listed, there are tons of other good causes to donate to, but I’m already spread thinner than I wish to be. I’m working on building my charity muscles!
Thanks for sharing your strategy!
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That’s a great balance that I didn’t get into in the post between US and international giving. We also share the same thoughts on their priority. I look forward to being in a place where we don’t have to choose quite so much between all of the four.
You know, I’ve been waffling for a while about possibly monetizing my blog more than the random affiliate link, and this strategy is really interesting to me.
As I’m learning more and more, charities really depend on regular donations, so I’m working on focusing on a few that I support throughout the year instead of just haphazardly giving as things arise.
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I don’t think there’s anything wrong with monetizing our blogs, it’s work! But I also feel better about monetizing for a specific reason. That’s just what works better for me.