Financial donations are actually investments in your organization’s future. They strengthen your community and can also yield side benefits such as branding visibility and tax deductions.
Studies have shown that some consumers will seek out organizations that support communities and causes.
Tips:
- Though sponsorships give brand visibility, they are tax deductible only if your organization does not receive significant value in return.
- You may choose to give anonymously and not receive the public visibility.
- Whether you use accrual or cash accounting, the cash donation’s actual date must be in your tax year to be deductible.
- For contributions to charitable organizations, you may only deduct an amount that is a percent of your gross income.
- Matching employee giving, even if it’s a partial match, can help ensure that company giving is connected with employees’ interests.
- Some companies pledge to donate a specific percent of their pre-tax profits.
- It’s helpful to have a set budget and strategy for donations, to have useful parameters for responding to unsolicited requests (e.g, we only give to organizations supporting our region…or…we only give to organizations that support women, who are the majority of our customers).
- Using cross-departmental employee teams for giving decisions can help promote stronger relationships among departments.
