Six Tips for Year-End Giving
At the Community Foundation, we can help make your year-end giving easy and full of joy. A trusted center for giving for 40 years, we’re proud to be a place where charitable giving becomes local, personal, and meaningful.
We can help you think strategically about how you give and how to make our community a better place. We work to ensure that your donations make the greatest impact on the causes you care about while maximizing your tax advantages. Even with the increased standard deduction, there are still tax-wise ways you can give to your favorite causes.
1. Consider a gift of appreciated stock or mutual funds.
If you have stocks or other publicly traded securities that are worth more than what you paid for them, consider using these for your charitable giving this year. Appreciated stock and mutual funds can offer a more cost-efficient deduction, based on current fair market value, not your cost basis. The Foundation can accept marketable securities of any kind. We recommend initiating year-end mutual fund gifts by November 1 and stock gifts by December 20.
2. Bunch multiple years’ gifts into a Donor-Advised Fund.
With the increased standard deduction ($12,950 for individuals, $25,900 for couples for 2022), it may be difficult for some people to receive a tax benefit from charitable giving every year. One solution? Bunch multiple years worth of donations into a gift to a Donor-Advised Fund at the Community Foundation. You'll get the full tax deduction now, while spreading out grants to your favorite charities over time, and benefiting from the larger standard deduction in those later years. We can set up a Donor-Advised Fund for you in one meeting.
3. Recycle your dollars for good, with a gift to our revolving loan fund for nonprofits.
Our Community Investment Revolving Fund helps nonprofits solve social challenges on key issues in our community like housing, sustainable agriculture, and entrepreneurship by providing them with low-interest loans. When paid back, these local dollars get recycled to fund new initiatives into the future. Join us and other donors in making these loans possible.
4. Use your required IRA distribution for giving, skip the taxes.
Age 70 ½? Charitable IRA Rollovers allow donors to avoid paying income taxes on up to $100,000 of their required minimum distribution while supporting their favorite causes in the community. These tax-free rollovers can benefit any public charity, although they can’t be donated to a donor-advised fund. You may direct qualified charitable distributions to any of our non-donor-advised funds, or we can help you set up a new fund that benefits an interest area of your choice, a specific nonprofit, or greatest needs grantmaking. This year we recommend using your RMD to support the Greatest Needs Fund, Equal Access Santa Cruz County, Friends of the Foundation Fund, or Rise Together Fund.
5. Give in someone's honor.
Donate in lieu of a holiday gift. Whether it's to your own Donor-Advised Fund or one of our other funds, be sure your gift is postmarked or submitted online by 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31.
6. Let the Community Foundation do the legwork.
Working with the Community Foundation gives you access to our extensive knowledge of the local nonprofit community and the broad charitable needs of our region—so you can stay informed about the organizations you support and the effect your giving will have on the future of our community. We’re happy to discuss any options for accomplishing your charitable giving.
Written by
Sam Leask
To learn more, please contact Sam Leask, Philanthropic Services Director, at sleask@cfscc.org or (831) 662-2060.
