An interesting article by Rivan V. Stinson on October 28, 2021 in the Kiplinger.

When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act nearly doubled the standard deduction starting with the 2018 tax year, charities and tax experts expected donations to drop. Nearly one-third of taxpayers itemized deductions—including charitable giving—before the tax law overhaul, and the number of itemizers fell to 11% in 2018. Because charitable givers would no longer have the same tax-deduction incentive, the thinking went, charitable giving would suffer.

Indeed, giving by individual donors dipped 4.2% in 2018 from the previous year, according to Giving USA Foundation and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. But in 2019, donations bounced back 4.7%. And charitable giving kept rising dramatically as Americans responded to the pandemic and a variety of natural disasters. In a recent Fidelity Charitable study, 27% of donors said they gave more in 2020 than the year before.

The pandemic also changed how some people give. Individual donors, corporations and family foundations gifted more money to general need funds or to a charity’s general operating fund instead of writing a check for a specific project. Some projects—such as after-school programs—were on hiatus due to local shutdowns, and donors became more concerned about addressing pressing needs, particularly food and housing.

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Use the Charity Exchange matching donation program.

Charity Exchange charitable foundation and Donor Advised Fund operates in the USA, Canada and Israel. The Foundation also offers a Global Matching Donation program. The Global Matching Donation program is a great tool for donors to use when seeking to support global charities and charities across the border. The benefit of donating to the foundation and using the Donor Advised Fund and or the donation matching program, is that all donations are tax-deductible. Donors receive a tax-deductible receipt for funds deposited to the foundation.

How does the matching donation program work?

The concept of the global matching donation program is to pair 2 donors from different countries and match their donations. Each donor’s donation supports the other donor’s charity. Below is an example of how it works.

Justin, from Montreal Canada, wants to make $1,300 CAD donation to the American Red Cross. Justin creates a $1,300 pending donation to be matched and sent to the American Red Cross. The donation is pending on the charity exchange’s platform until a match from a US donor is found.

Joe, from Washington DC in the USA, wants to make a $1,000 USD donation to Canada’s Feed the Poor organization. Joe creates a $1,000 pending donation match to Canada’s Feed the Poor. The pending donation is instantly matched with Justin’s pending donation to the American Red Cross.

The result, Justin from Canada’s $1,300 CAD donation is sent to Canada’s Feed the Poor to support Joe from Washington’s selected charity. And Joe from Washington DC’s $1,000 USD donation is sent to the American Red Cross to support Justin from Canada’s selected charity. Essentially the donor makes a recommendation to the Donor Advised fund to donate their funds to the charity the other donor selected.

To use the donation matching program, the donor would need to open a Charity Exchange account and make a deposit / donation to the Donor Advised Fund. Once the funds are donated and cleared in the Donor’s DAF account the donor can recommend a donation to any charity in the country of residence or in the countries Charity Exchange operates in using the donation matching program.

To learn more about the donation matching program visit our FAQ page or watch a short how to video here.

_{Legal Notice: Opinions in this blog post do not reflect the opinion or endorsement of Charity Exchange or its affiliates. The opinions in this post should not be used as legal or financial advice for any financial decision. The advice or opinions shared in this blog post are solely those of the author and are not the opinion of Charity Exchange or its affiliates. For legal or financial advice, always consult with your financial advisor or legal council.}

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