Donating a Car To Charity - Some of the Many Organizations that May Benefit From Charitable Vehicle Donation

When the US General Accounting Office (GAO) issued its landmark report on charitable vehicle donation to the Senate Committee on Finance in November of 2003, over 4,000 distinct charity and non-profit organizations (NPOs) were accepting vehicular donations. Though most of these used third-party, for-profit facilitating agents at the time, changes in tax laws for the 2005 tax season ushered in a new self-sufficiency among a smaller class of NPOs, often more closely geared towards benefiting from charitable vehicle donations.

Consider the very large field that benefited in varying degrees from the glory days of charitable vehicle donation, before government regulation stepped in and made it harder for people to take unreasonable deductions that varied greatly from the actual amount that charitable organizations actually received. Though a large part of this had to do with some vaugery in how the law was written, it was also a consequence of a large segment of often less-than-scrupulous third-party agents who acted, supposedly, on behalf of the charities in question.

Now that one can only deduct the amount their charitable vehicle donation actually nets the IRS-approved charity, many of these third party players have left the game seeking easier marks elsewhere. This means that many charities that relied on charitable vehicle donation for more than a small percentage of their annual budget were forced to either handle their own donations or make much stricter agreements with the companies that retrieved the vehicles for them.

As such, many of the charities that once accepted charitable vehicle donations were interested only in the money they were able to get from sales. These include many of the more commonly known and nationally represented charities such as Easter Seals, and the Lung Association. Indeed, medical related funds are very common types of charities that accept monies from donated cars rather than the cars themselves.

Some NPOs that accept charitable vehicle donation do so in an effort to further aspects of their social mission that include donating repaired vehicles to needy residents or using them to create a fleet of vehicles to shuttle old folks to their doctor appointments. Sometimes the receipt of a charitable vehicle donation is tied to taking classes learning how to fix and maintain such a car, should anything go wrong (which it undoubtedly go haywire in the span of a few years given the used nature of your donation).

Like Habitat for Humanity, some charitable vehicle donation projects make part of the charitable process dependent upon the recipients and other members of the community working together to actually make the donation something useful. Such charities with an educational and uplift mission don't have to be schools, though other types of education are usually involved. In this case, your charitable vehicle donation has the best chance of actually becoming a running and useful gift.

Another type of charity that can use your charitable vehicle donation doesn't have the facilities to fix vehicles, but may have a need for a donated vehicle. For instance, some schools have use for a vehicle temporarily, such as when the sports teams are travelling, but as soon as they're back for the year, the car may be sold to the highest bidder. This can include colleges and adult education, too.

One surprisingly eager recipient of charitable vehicle donation are the local police and fire department. This is one area where a boat may actually be likely to be used for professional purposes, such as in the case of search and rescue missions. Most police and fire departments are always on the lookout for a car that runs well enough to be used right away.

The ideal charity is one that can use your charitable vehicle donation directly rather than selling it as quickly as possible at auction. In the case of educational missions, a car with few dents and mechanical problems can prove invaluable to those in need, even if your charitable vehicle donation is in pretty rough shape when received.