Tag: charitable giving

How to Encourage Your Employees to Volunteer

On September 17, 2019

Of late, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the broad concept of philanthropy have gained increased attention where businesses commit themselves to give back to society. The success of CSR projects depends on how well-coordinated they are. To increase the success of charity projects, companies should endeavor to involve their workers by encouraging them to volunteer in various ways.

Making giving a corporate culture

The art of giving can be enforced within your company by making charity a corporate value and internal culture. Employees joining your company will be highly likely to adopt such a culture and commit themselves to live by it. Besides, businesses that have incorporated the culture of giving in their internal values stand a better chance of attracting employees that have a passion for philanthropy.

Allocating responsibilities

To win the hearts of your employees towards giving to charity, you should endeavor to allocate related responsibilities to workers who have a passion for CSR. Once you identify employees who are committed to serving society through charity, giving them an opportunity to organize and coordinate the fulfillment of the CSR projects cements their commitments.

Recognizing employees’ dedication

Employees who have dedicated themselves to fulfilling charity projects that are organized internally by your company should be appreciated and recognized. Recognizing the top participants in philanthropy encourages more workers to show commitment to similar projects in the future. Such recognition can be in the form of giving workers certificates of participation or even branded attire that recognizes their philanthropic efforts.

Showing commitment right from the top

Employees are highly likely to follow suit the foundations laid within the workplace by the senior managers. The entire C-suit structure of your company, including the president, Chief Executive Officer, and other senior managers, should show commitment by attending CSR projects. Whereas such projects should not be made mandatory for other employees, the senior management will generally serve as a role model and encourage employee participation.

Making CSR fun and attractive

The last incentive that can attract your employees’ participation in charity projects is by making the projects fun. Creating teams that compete and win prizes during the project brings even the workers who have no passion for philanthropy on board. Pictures and videos of the event can also be published on the company’s social media platforms as a way of fronting the workers to the market and showing their dedication.

The Most Philanthropic Athletes

By Jimmy Lustig

On August 20, 2019

In Blog, Jimmy Lustig

In this day and age, sports fans around the world demand far more philanthropic activity from athletes than ever before. With athletic contracts and sponsorship deals putting many of today’s athletes into countless Forbes “wealthiest people” lists, it would be quite surprising if these athletes were not giving back to their communities or donating to charities. Fortunately, many of today’s superstar athletes make it a priority to pursue philanthropic endeavors, propelling some of them to even start their own non-profit foundations.

The Top 10 Most Philanthropic Athletes

Serena Williams – The world-famous tennis superstar is arguably the leading philanthropic athlete, donating her time and money to a broad range of charities around the world, most notably including UNICEF.

Colin Kaepernick – This NFL star has a bad reputation amongst some football fans, however, the former football player has taken up activism full-time and has donated a large portion of his NFL earnings to causes like social justice and education.

Ronda Rousey – MMA’s top female athlete of all time has spent a lot of her free time helping out underprivileged children, teens, and young adults.

Cristiano Ronaldo – Soccer’s megastar might be one of the wealthiest athletes in the world currently. He is well known for helping children’s hospitals, schools, and other foundations. He also has a habit of donating his winnings from various competitions to charitable causes.

Lebron James – He is arguably in the top 5 list of greatest NBA stars to ever play the game. His off-court charity game is equally as impressive as he donates time and money to children’s education through his self-named organization.

John Cena – WWE is officially classified as a sport, despite its theatric qualities. There is no acting, however, behind Cena’s leading role in the Make a Wish Foundation charity, helping to grant over 500 wishes so far. He is also invested in spreading awareness and raising funds to beat breast cancer.

Conor McGregor – Despite his bad-boy image, Conor is heavily involved with Irish charities and mentorship programs. He has donated to help out homeless shelters, children’s hospitals, and more.

Michael Phelps – The most decorated Olympic athlete of all time is also the most giving. Phelps has donated millions of dollars of his own money and his time to help underprivileged kids through his own organization.

Carlos Beltran – Baseball’s most charitable player is without a doubt Carlos Beltran. He is known to occasionally drop millions of dollars into children’s charities that he supports, and has started his own organization to provide hurricane and natural disaster relief.

Tiger Woods – Despite his marital meltdown and slight fall from grace, Woods has always been a huge giver and continues to be. He is particularly well known for helping impoverished young adults pay for college.

Philanthropy Trends of 2019

By Jimmy Lustig

On July 19, 2019

In Blog, Jimmy Lustig

With the better part of this year behind us and the mild weather months on the horizon, this time can be used to reflect on the trends that we have seen in philanthropic involvement this year so far. Identifying and analyzing current trends in philanthropy and how they have changed in comparison to previous years is the best way to make future predictions. We can use these trends to predict how societal involvement and philanthropic engagement should pan out in 2020 and even beyond.

Donations are increasing

Since the Great Recession, total charitable donations have been on the rise. Since 2014, the U.S. is continually surpassing their total donation amount year after year, with no evidence of this trend slowing down anytime soon. However, while most would attribute this to a rise in the number of households becoming involved in philanthropic engagement, it is actually more likely due to a larger monetary amount donated from the same number of households, on average. The donor pool is decreasing, while the donation amount continues to rise.

More millennial involvement

The millennial generation is the most recent age group to begin to enter the workforce. With this emergence comes a new generation of socially aware individuals with a salary and income to support their philanthropic desires. Millennials are a generation surrounded by social media influence where activities, like volunteering and donating to charities, are broadcasted. Seeing others involved in acts of kindness and volunteering is contagious to others, with help from real-time streaming and technology available on smartphones.

A rise in impact investing

Impact investing is the act of investing in companies that are intending to not only gain fiscal profits but also provide social impacts to benefit organizations that align with the company’s mission statement. This is not a new concept by any means, but it is an activity that has seen a rise in interest by many industries in recent years. Impact investments provide a way for donors to be able to advise and oversee their funds, which appeals to the businesses who are more considerate of making a profit while also doing good for society.

Technology making us more knowledgable

Philanthropists and donors are interested in knowing more about their charitable impact. Donors are becoming more focused on results and have been known to increase their charitable contributions when they are provided information on how their donation has directly impacted the organization and cause. Technological advancements make it easier to provide donors with this information. It is now easier than ever to spread awareness of organizations and even more simple to make a donation with the click of a button on a social media profile.

It is likely that these growing trends from 2019 will follow us into 2020. With technology and social impact progressing as it has been, there is no limit as to what philanthropic trends we might see in the near future.

Jimmy Lustig Five Ways To Give To Charity

Five Ways to Gift your Assets to a Charity

By Jimmy Lustig

On January 23, 2019

In Blog, Jimmy Lustig, Philanthropy

There are many ways you can choose to give back to charitable causes, whether it’s donating money directly or volunteering your time. If you want to make a more significant contribution, you may consider the five following ways to gift your assets to a charity of your choice.

Charitable gift annuity

A charitable gift annuity is when you make a sizable gift to a charity. This gift makes you eligible for a partial tax deduction, and you receive a fixed income stream from the charity for the rest of your life. The money you give is set aside in a reserve account and invested. After you pass away, the charity receives the remainder of the money. Charitable gift annuities can be set up by individuals or couples. The minimum amount of money required for this type of giving is usually $5,000, but are often much larger than that.

Donor-advised funds

A donor-advised fund is an account set up through a charitable organization. Donors make a charitable deduction and receive an immediate tax deduction from the gift. You can continue to contribute personal assets to the fund, where the money will be invested and grow tax-free until you’re able to make a grant to a qualified charity. Donors are able to give to the fund as frequently as they’d like and recommend grants when they make sense.

Retained real estate

In this type of giving, the donor gifts a residence, farm or another kind of property to a charitable organization. The donor retains the right to live on the property for a designated period or throughout your life, with the property going to the charity at the end of the term, or after the death of the last person with a retained interest in the property.

Family foundation

A family foundation is a private wealth fund established for charitable reasons. Often, the donor has full control over grantmaking and passes that authority to a relative or other trusted party after their death. Starting a family foundation is not practical for smaller donors. Family foundations require significant administrative overhead and have large establishment costs up front.

Charitable remainder trust

A charitable remainder trust is a tax-exempt trust that pays a stream of income to the grantor or other non-charitable entity for a designated amount of time. The remaining value is then paid to a charity at the end of a period of time. The trustee takes on the administrative burden, meaning they’re responsible for preparing and filing tax returns, tracking the categories of income and calculating the annual payout. The grantor typically receives an income tax deduction that is equal to the value of the remainder interest in the trust.

How to Make the Most out of your Donations

By Jimmy Lustig

On July 11, 2018

In Blog, Jimmy Lustig, Philanthropy

In 2017, Americans donated $410 billion to charities, up 5 percent from 2016. Donating to charity not only helps others, it also helps you feel good about yourself and the positive impact you’re helping make. Here are three things to consider to make the most out of your charitable donations.

Do your research

Unfortunately, there are a lot of organizations that don’t actually give the money they receive to the groups they promise to help. In order to avoid getting scammed, do research into different organizations before actually donating any money. There are organizations that make the research process easier, one is Charity Navigator.

Charity Navigator serves as a charity watchdog that evaluates over 9,000 charities. They determine what percentage of donations the charity receives go towards program expenses, administrative expenses and fundraising expenses. Based on the financial breakdown, they score the charity out of 100.

Knowing where a charities money goes can help you make smarter decisions about who you choose to support. The point of donating is to help others, so making sure your money is actually going to those causes are important.

Choose what you want to donate

Many charities accept more than just money. Look for toy or coat drives in your neighborhood to get rid of gently-worn items you no longer use. Clean out your closets and consider donating all of the items you haven’t worn in a year. Homeless shelters, libraries and hospitals also often accept item donations.

Some organizations, like animal shelters, have lists of items they accept in lieu of monetary donations. Shelters and food banks accept shelf-stable food items. Or, you can volunteer your time at a soup kitchen or other organization that’s important to you.

Keep your receipts

While donating to charities is about the benefits it offers to others, there are benefits for yourself as well. There are tax deductions you can claim when you donate money to most charity. Depending on the tax bracket you’re in, you receive money back from your donation when you claim them during taxes.