Fundraising Is Broken And Here's How To Fix ItMarketSmart
What if you could lower your fundraising costs while exponentially increasing fundraising revenues? Now you can! With Engagement Fundraising. MarketSmart’s President, Founder and CEO, Greg Warner gives his interesting point of view on this, backing it up with stats, graphs, and captivating visuals to prove his point.
The Team Reed Foundation, in partnership with Patrick Reed, is fully aware of the importance of giving. Please share this presentation to show that importance to others as well.
Managing director of NOVA Financial Services in Tucson, AZ, Jake Kagele holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst designation from the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA). Jake Kagele is also active in his community, securing more than $100,000 in tax credits for Salpointe Catholic High School and serving on the investment committee of its foundation. Here are a few ways to become more engaged in your community's affairs.
Fundraising Is Broken And Here's How To Fix ItMarketSmart
What if you could lower your fundraising costs while exponentially increasing fundraising revenues? Now you can! With Engagement Fundraising. MarketSmart’s President, Founder and CEO, Greg Warner gives his interesting point of view on this, backing it up with stats, graphs, and captivating visuals to prove his point.
The Team Reed Foundation, in partnership with Patrick Reed, is fully aware of the importance of giving. Please share this presentation to show that importance to others as well.
Managing director of NOVA Financial Services in Tucson, AZ, Jake Kagele holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst designation from the Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA). Jake Kagele is also active in his community, securing more than $100,000 in tax credits for Salpointe Catholic High School and serving on the investment committee of its foundation. Here are a few ways to become more engaged in your community's affairs.
Why it's important to research a charity before donating peter palivos ph...Peter Palivos
It can be very tempting to donate to a charity that tugs at your heartstrings and elicits feelings of empathy, anger, or sadness. However, no matter how tempting it may be to throw resources at an organization, it’s very important to first do some research. The sad truth of the world is that scams will always exist to prey upon the emotions and goodwill of people in any given society. In addition to conning innocent people out of their money, they also harm the intended recipients who will never see a single penny. Any reliable charity will be registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and provide tax-deductions for donations. A fraudulent charity will offer no such deduction since it’s illegitimate.
Fuel Good 2018: Filling the Fundraising Gaps: The Decline of Granting & Rise ...Sparkrock
CanadaHelps shares current and cutting edge data and resources from across the sector so you can bring more clarity and sustainability to your funding strategy.
The NEDMA Awards event honors creative excellence and innovation in categories that include print ads, direct mail, catalogs, interactive, integrated media campaigns and Direct Marketing on a shoestring. Over 100 industry leaders attended the celebration, which was held June 23, 2018 in Boston’s Innovation District at District Hall.
Award winners, selected from a pool of over 200 submissions, are judged on the creative elements as well as results.
Donate The Charity Projects Globally-SCIPIncscipinc
Helping others is one of the great cause of happiness. That is because of the act of kindness which you have shown to a person without expecting any reward. If you want to help others, then you must donate funds to a charity organization. In this way, you will help the poor and needy people.
Salesforce Los Angeles User Group - Cinco de Mayo 2020 Virtual PartyRussell Feldman
Deck used at the May 5, 2020 virtual meeting of the Los Angeles Salesforce User Group, part of the Salesforce Trailblazer Community. Featured presenter Sam Epstein, "Build An Interactive Resume on Salesforce," using Digital Experience (Community Cloud).
As Development Director, I challenged my Board of Directors to give a "stretch gift" from their tax return to help the organization reach it's fundraising goal. The letter was very successful, as longstanding members who had never given-gave for the first time.
How successful fundraising groups get corporate donationsDonorbox
It’s interesting that many sponsors choose not to pursue one source that can prove to be of extreme value. They may have considered going after corporate donations, but may not know how to pursue them. Is it a lack of confidence and vision, or perhaps not knowing what to say?
Failing to have, and effectively integrate, a ‘business ask strategy’ into your campaign leaves money on the table. Successful fundraising groups already know what to do and are reaping the financial rewards. Corporations often have money set aside for charitable causes and products they can donate or may be able to provide hands-on volunteer assistance.
Having a good understanding of your group’s needs and knowing how to approach and sell a business on your cause is important for securing donations. Here are some things to consider.
Curtis Funding Group ran a promotion in July-August to benefit a local cause, while giving their clients a chance to win a prize. Thanks to our clients - here are the results.
Why it's important to research a charity before donating peter palivos ph...Peter Palivos
It can be very tempting to donate to a charity that tugs at your heartstrings and elicits feelings of empathy, anger, or sadness. However, no matter how tempting it may be to throw resources at an organization, it’s very important to first do some research. The sad truth of the world is that scams will always exist to prey upon the emotions and goodwill of people in any given society. In addition to conning innocent people out of their money, they also harm the intended recipients who will never see a single penny. Any reliable charity will be registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and provide tax-deductions for donations. A fraudulent charity will offer no such deduction since it’s illegitimate.
Fuel Good 2018: Filling the Fundraising Gaps: The Decline of Granting & Rise ...Sparkrock
CanadaHelps shares current and cutting edge data and resources from across the sector so you can bring more clarity and sustainability to your funding strategy.
The NEDMA Awards event honors creative excellence and innovation in categories that include print ads, direct mail, catalogs, interactive, integrated media campaigns and Direct Marketing on a shoestring. Over 100 industry leaders attended the celebration, which was held June 23, 2018 in Boston’s Innovation District at District Hall.
Award winners, selected from a pool of over 200 submissions, are judged on the creative elements as well as results.
Donate The Charity Projects Globally-SCIPIncscipinc
Helping others is one of the great cause of happiness. That is because of the act of kindness which you have shown to a person without expecting any reward. If you want to help others, then you must donate funds to a charity organization. In this way, you will help the poor and needy people.
Salesforce Los Angeles User Group - Cinco de Mayo 2020 Virtual PartyRussell Feldman
Deck used at the May 5, 2020 virtual meeting of the Los Angeles Salesforce User Group, part of the Salesforce Trailblazer Community. Featured presenter Sam Epstein, "Build An Interactive Resume on Salesforce," using Digital Experience (Community Cloud).
As Development Director, I challenged my Board of Directors to give a "stretch gift" from their tax return to help the organization reach it's fundraising goal. The letter was very successful, as longstanding members who had never given-gave for the first time.
How successful fundraising groups get corporate donationsDonorbox
It’s interesting that many sponsors choose not to pursue one source that can prove to be of extreme value. They may have considered going after corporate donations, but may not know how to pursue them. Is it a lack of confidence and vision, or perhaps not knowing what to say?
Failing to have, and effectively integrate, a ‘business ask strategy’ into your campaign leaves money on the table. Successful fundraising groups already know what to do and are reaping the financial rewards. Corporations often have money set aside for charitable causes and products they can donate or may be able to provide hands-on volunteer assistance.
Having a good understanding of your group’s needs and knowing how to approach and sell a business on your cause is important for securing donations. Here are some things to consider.
Curtis Funding Group ran a promotion in July-August to benefit a local cause, while giving their clients a chance to win a prize. Thanks to our clients - here are the results.
Essay on Charity Watchdog Groups
Essay on Charity
Essay On Charity Run
The Importance Of Charity
Persuasive Essay On Charity
Nonprofit Charity
Philanthropy Reflection
How to Speak Well (Enough) With Your Extraordinary Family of Trusting Support...Bloomerang
https://bloomerang.co/resources/webinars/
Tom Ahern will show you how your organization can not only fundraise BUT emotionally BOOST your supporter base in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.
Donor Development for Charity Shop DonorsRachel Beer
A presentation developed for eproductive's (http://www.eproductive.com) first conference covering best practice for charity shops.
This aims to encourage charities to examine and realise the full potential of their charity shop donors - through the data provided by the eproductive Gift Aid system - and better integrate their development and stewardship with other forms of giving, for better return on investment.
NPTechClubATX: Prospecting - Reviewing Your Own Databases for Hidden GemsNetSquared
Join us for a focused discussion about how a seasoned nonprofit fundraiser conducts in-depth yet cost effective fundraising research, with an emphasis on your own nonprofit's databases.
Carolyn suggests you sign up for a free Candid/GuideStar account. Some of Carolyn's suggestions involve using information shared on the Candid website, so that means you can start researching on your own, right after the presentation!
Carolyn M. Appleton got her start in nonprofit fundraising in Austin in the 1980s. Since then, she has worked across Texas, often in remote locations with little or no staff support. New technologies and the Internet have helped Carolyn achieve her fundraising goals, and then some! In 2011, she launched Carolyn's Nonprofit Blog, which today has more than 100 nations visiting annually.
Carolyn has been an NTEN: Nonprofit Technology Network volunteer for ten years. She received a national NTENy award for her volunteer efforts. Carolyn has spoken during the annual NTC: Nonprofit Technology Conference (and others), she has authored a variety of articles on nonprofit fundraising and communications, and in 2019, she was pleased to help TechSoup develop an online nonprofit disaster preparation and recovery course funded by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. In 2019, Carolyn also became a Qgiv affiliate. Join us for this hands-on insider program!
Slides from their May2020 event.
#NPTechClubATX is part of a network of tech clubs across the nation and the world. NTEN: Nonprofit Technology Network and NetSquared (a program of TechSoup), are co-sponsors. Meetings are free to all.
https://local.nten.org/austin/
Charities to avoid to actually help veterans peter palivos business &...Peter Palivos
Over 45,000 nonprofit organizations that are registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are exclusively devoted to helping military veterans and their families. On the surface, that is a great statistic. The trouble is that not everything is always as it seems. By nature, some charities are going to do a better job of handling transparency and accountability. Not every business is in the same state of financial health.
peterpalivos.org
Americans are some of the most generous givers on the face of the planet. They reach into their pockets and take out their checkbooks on behalf of others more often than any other industrialized nation.
Introducing Insights for charities on JustGivingJustGiving
Learn about Insights – a new dashboard for charities on JustGiving that helps you track your reach and measure your impact on our platform.
Each month it will tell you the number of people you have reached, the number of actions they have been inspired to take and the money they have raised for your cause.
No Event? No Problem: The Power of Grassroots FundraisingFirstGiving
This webinar features new and innovative ways to raise money through grassroots fundraising.
In this free interactive webinar, you will learn about:
- Proven fundraising methods outside official events
- Easy ways to attract new donors by tapping into your supporters' existing networks
- Methods used by YMCA Metropolitan Dallas to raise thousands online.
Guest speaker: Sharon Bradley, Camp Grady Spruce, YMCA Metropolitan Dallas
Nancy M. Heiser, VP - Wealth Management, UBS Heiser Group makes the cover of China's American Philanthropy magazine. As someone who preaches leaving a legacy, she wanted to discuss how philanthropy should be an important piece in everyone's estate planning portfolio.
The curious case of joan rivers by Mellini KantayyaBryan R. Adams
In 2013's critically-acclaimed essay book, Actor. Writer. Whatever by Mellini Kantayya, she breaks down why Joan Rivers is revolutionary and groundbreaking comedienne and businesswoman. Rest in peace, rest in power, Joan Rivers,
Joshua Waldman Discusses How Recruiters Use LinkedInBryan R. Adams
Not only is there an increase among recruiters using social media to find employees, data show that companies are sourcing more qualified candidates and in return stronger hires, says Joshua Waldman of Career Enlightenment
WorldofMoney.org will honor the educational philanthropy of
New York Yankees player Curtis Granderson with its Icon For Change Award and Fashion Mogul Andrew Hilfiger with its Fashion Philanthropist Award, May 2, 2013
W. Alvin Jackson, author of 2011 memoir, WITNESS, discusses his transition from Chrysler auto exec to franchise owner, to publisher, to managing director of Gospel Tribune Atlanta
One of the reasons I didn’t go back to the record label system, is because I wanted to try my hand at film publicity. Yes, I am in a film club. Yes, I have produced a film. Yes, I have casted for a MTV PSA, directed by a big time Hollywood director (Joel Schumacher).
Most of my clients are independent filmmakers who are on the film festival circuit. While I did work on a Miramax film, my responsibility was to get exposure opportunities for one of the producers of the film. My paycheck came from her and not Miramax.
Here is a gallery of some of my favorite pieces of publicity in film.
When I founded FAB Communications, my initial goal was to rack up as many entertainment clients as possible. But when I joined BNI in 1998, people started referring small business colleagues and entrepreneurs. Folks were sending me dentists, financial organizations, and planned giving advisors! None of those were as sexy as the stuff I was doing in entertainment. But once I sat down with the potential client, I understood what their goals were and how I could help them. It actually was sexy. Now most of my practice is focused on entrepreneurs and bringing them into the spotlight and showcasing their unique abilities.
Here is a gallery of some of my favorite pieces of publicity for entrepreneurs.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Removing Uninteresting Bytes in Software FuzzingAftab Hussain
Imagine a world where software fuzzing, the process of mutating bytes in test seeds to uncover hidden and erroneous program behaviors, becomes faster and more effective. A lot depends on the initial seeds, which can significantly dictate the trajectory of a fuzzing campaign, particularly in terms of how long it takes to uncover interesting behaviour in your code. We introduce DIAR, a technique designed to speedup fuzzing campaigns by pinpointing and eliminating those uninteresting bytes in the seeds. Picture this: instead of wasting valuable resources on meaningless mutations in large, bloated seeds, DIAR removes the unnecessary bytes, streamlining the entire process.
In this work, we equipped AFL, a popular fuzzer, with DIAR and examined two critical Linux libraries -- Libxml's xmllint, a tool for parsing xml documents, and Binutil's readelf, an essential debugging and security analysis command-line tool used to display detailed information about ELF (Executable and Linkable Format). Our preliminary results show that AFL+DIAR does not only discover new paths more quickly but also achieves higher coverage overall. This work thus showcases how starting with lean and optimized seeds can lead to faster, more comprehensive fuzzing campaigns -- and DIAR helps you find such seeds.
- These are slides of the talk given at IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop, ICSTW 2022.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
zkStudyClub - Reef: Fast Succinct Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Regex ProofsAlex Pruden
This paper presents Reef, a system for generating publicly verifiable succinct non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs that a committed document matches or does not match a regular expression. We describe applications such as proving the strength of passwords, the provenance of email despite redactions, the validity of oblivious DNS queries, and the existence of mutations in DNA. Reef supports the Perl Compatible Regular Expression syntax, including wildcards, alternation, ranges, capture groups, Kleene star, negations, and lookarounds. Reef introduces a new type of automata, Skipping Alternating Finite Automata (SAFA), that skips irrelevant parts of a document when producing proofs without undermining soundness, and instantiates SAFA with a lookup argument. Our experimental evaluation confirms that Reef can generate proofs for documents with 32M characters; the proofs are small and cheap to verify (under a second).
Paper: https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1886
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
Dr. Sean Tan, Head of Data Science, Changi Airport Group
Discover how Changi Airport Group (CAG) leverages graph technologies and generative AI to revolutionize their search capabilities. This session delves into the unique search needs of CAG’s diverse passengers and customers, showcasing how graph data structures enhance the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated search results, mitigating the risk of “hallucinations” and improving the overall customer journey.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
Sudheer Mechineni, Head of Application Frameworks, Standard Chartered Bank
Discover how Standard Chartered Bank harnessed the power of Neo4j to transform complex data access challenges into a dynamic, scalable graph database solution. This keynote will cover their journey from initial adoption to deploying a fully automated, enterprise-grade causal cluster, highlighting key strategies for modelling organisational changes and ensuring robust disaster recovery. Learn how these innovations have not only enhanced Standard Chartered Bank’s data infrastructure but also positioned them as pioneers in the banking sector’s adoption of graph technology.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Future of Agility: Supercharging Digital Transfor...Neo4j
Leonard Jayamohan, Partner & Generative AI Lead, Deloitte
This keynote will reveal how Deloitte leverages Neo4j’s graph power for groundbreaking digital twin solutions, achieving a staggering 100x performance boost. Discover the essential role knowledge graphs play in successful generative AI implementations. Plus, get an exclusive look at an innovative Neo4j + Generative AI solution Deloitte is developing in-house.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Secstrike : Reverse Engineering & Pwnable tools for CTF.pptx
Tony Martignetti Quoted in NY Daily News
1. December 14, 2005
Gifts to Charities, Helping Others - and Yourself
By Elizabeth Lazarowitz, Daily News Business Writer
Holidays got you in a giving mood? Make an addition to your gift list: a charity. With
hundreds of groups clamoring for a bit of your limited budget, though, you don't have to
be Scrooge to wonder, quot;What's in it for me?quot;
quot;The primary motivation to give really has to be a love of the work that the organization
does,quot; said Tony Martignetti, manager of Planned Giving Advisors, which helps
nonprofits raise funds. quot;But I think a close second is the tax benefit.quot;
If you're planning on itemizing deductions on your tax returns, including donations can
help offset your income tax. For someone in the 25% tax bracket, for example, a $100
donation to your favorite cause will cost just $75.
About 70% to 80% of Americans contribute annually to at least one charity, a report by
the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University
showed.
While you can't take your volunteered time as a deduction, you shouldn't forget to deduct
any costs you incurred while volunteering, such as mileage you put on your car.
If your donation will be a somewhat modest sum, you might want to give it to a smaller
organization in your community that may not have the flood of funds that better-known
groups often do.
quot;At a local homeless shelter, $15 can allow them to buy 15 boxes of macaroni and cheese
that actually goes to people who need help,quot; said Trent Stamp, president of charity
research group Charity Navigator.
Try to target one or two groups to avoid spreading your donations too thinly, Stamp said.
quot;It's important to diversify when you buy stocks, but if you do that when you donate, you
become inefficient and ineffective.quot;
A larger, consolidated donation also makes it less likely that a group will sell your
address to other organizations, which can result in an annoying avalanche in your mail
box of letters from groups seeking for money, Stamp said.
Don't forget that many employers will match their workers' donations, so if yours does, it
could double your gift.
2. Just because a group has quot;tax exemptquot; status doesn't mean donations are tax deductible.
To make sure you can write off a donation, check with your local IRS office or
www.irs.gov.
If there's no extra cash in your budget, check around your house for items - a suit that no
longer fits, the guitar you never play anymore, your old computer - that you can donate to
a thrift shop. For tax purposes, you can estimate the value of the items yourself, or use a
tool like TurboTax's It's Deductible software. But remember that donations of goods
valued over $250 require a receipt.
Some groups accept gifts of stocks, so consider that if you have company shares that have
risen in value. Not only can you deduct the current value of the shares on your itemized
tax return, but you also won't have to pay a tax on the gain in the value of the stock, said
Martignetti.
If you donate items that have risen in value, like your grandmother's collection of old
records, you can deduct their current market value, but only if the group can use them in
their charitable work (such as by teaching music) and if they keep them for at least two
years. Otherwise, you can only deduct the amount they originally cost, Martignetti said.
Car donations are a red flag for the IRS right now. You can only deduct the amount the
charity gets for the car, not the market value, and any gift valued above $5,000 now
requires a quot;qualified appraisal,quot; Martignetti added.
Even if you have nothing to give, you can buy holiday cards from charities that offer
them - a list that includes UNICEF, National Audubon Society, Children's Defense Fund
and Special Olympics - helps support those organizations. Instead of getting your animal-
loving friend another Dog-of-the-Month calendar, make a donation in their name to a
local animal shelter. Web sites like justgive.org and networkforgood.org offer quot;charity
gift basketsquot; based on a number of themes.