Anyone giving any money to charity from their business?

I used to mentor for a great program that provides mentors for young girls. It's an amazing program through the YWCA called GirlsFirst. Girls will be women some day, right? http://www.ywcaworks.org/page/567/ Let me know if you want to speak to my contact there.

HOPE Lending donates 10% of all revenues earned to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. I have a lot of fun volunteering and have made great contacts. Have you thought about donating to Women's Shelter's? You could invest in real estate and offer a home in the Oxford Community for women and their children. It provides guaranteed rent, an appreciating asses for you to invest further, and other tax benefits.

All the best!

~Melissa Olson

What a wonderful gesture, Mikelann. Whenever a non-profit asks for an auction donation I always offer up one of my four-week classes as an item to be auctioned off. Like you said, it brings a little publicity, it's a tax deduction and most importantly...it's good karma!

I have donated clothes to Dress for Success. They're a wonderful organization but might I put in a "plug" for a smaller, local, lesser know organization which serves women in need....Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Services. Check them out at http://www.adwas.org/

I don't donate a certain percentage, but we typically make contributions once a quarter to a person in need or an organization.

I give a percentage of my monthly net. I like to give, and having a determined amount helps me keep limits on my giving, AND it gives me the freedom to give at the same time. Having a set amount also allows me to say, "sorry, I cannot give right now, I've already donated my budgeted amount."

I do tend to give to my "favorites"--a collection of groups that support girls and organizations which are local. But having a budget also allows gifts to emergent requests and solicitations.

You may want to consider Women's Funding Alliance. Their work is well thought out and well-balanced. http://www.wfalliance.org/

We take 10% of our commision and give it to the charity of our clients choice. The response has been great and I would reccomend doing it. It will come back to you, Karma!

Both my wife and I support animal rescue organizations in Las Vegas. We also foster animals for the shelter and Heaven Can Wait Sanctuary, another non-profit rescue group here. Its very, very rewarding.

Great topic for discussion - thanks, Mikelann! I second Leila's suggestion re: WFA. They just did a comprehensive study about the quality of life for women and girls in the Puget Sound area, specifically focusing on: economic security, education, safety and violence, health and well-being, and leadership and giving. The report also has a special focus on immigrant and refugee populations.

The GSBA (Greater Seattle Business Assoc.) is hosting a luncheon where the E.D. of WFA will be presenting the results of their study and (if everyone's not already clear on this) why this is important. I would love to invite you to be my guest at the luncheon - it's Wed, August 8th, 11:30-1:30 at the Westin.

Please let me know if you'd like to go.

Hi Mikelann! It's my policy to have one pro-bono client. The non-profit I've chosen is The Snow Leopard Trust. What many people don't know about them is they not only try to save cats, they do it thru community involvement and the Snow Leopard Enterprise. A recent review of the effectivness of their organiztion got the following comment: "The program contributes to female empowerment in three main ways: raising individual self esteem; enhancing the profile of women within the family and the community; and engaging women in decision-making on the environment."

To read the details of the study (they received a 4-Star rating from Charity Navigator) and to learn more about the Trust and Enterprise go to http://www.snowleopard.org/news/currentnews/evaluations

Hi Mikelann, here's another one to consider:

Abused Deaf Women's Advocacy Services (ADWAS) at adwas.org.

If you have an Office Depot card, you get 5% back on purchases AND they will ALSO give 5% to the school of your choice. Ask at the desk to see the list of participating schools in our area.

Currently, I combine community service (teaching for free at Lifetime Learning Center) with donations of time (free coaching sessions) and goods (computer hardware) for local charity auctions.

At the beginning of each year, I decide how many teaching hours (and of course the corresponding prep time) I will donate. I limit my gift certificates for auctions to one per quarter and limit my hardware donations for auctions also to one per quarter. This way, I can say "no" if I've already met my giving goal for the quarter (as Leila mentioned previously).

Of course, none of the time I donate for teaching or coaching can be deducted from taxes, but it works for me in the "good vibes" way.

As my business grows, I plan to give cash donations to organizations that work with issues other than "seniors. I like the idea of picking a new group each year, so that my contributions can, over time, go to different areas of focus I want to support.

WFA does great work. Another one to check out is Washington CASH. CASH stands for Community Alliance for Self Help. "Washington CASH fosters self-sufficiency through self-employment for low-income women, people with disabilities, and others with low incomes by providing FREE business training, community business mentors, technical assistance, small loans, and peer support. We believe in discipline, dignity, responsibility, courage, accountability, unity and hard work." Its a good organization doing good work.
http://www.washingtoncash.org/

My husband Michael & I donate 10% of the proceeds 2 days a week to Childrens' Hospital in Seattle. Childrens' hosts a camp for children recovering from a life-threatening illness, with amazing volunteers from the community. We are fortunate to have 3 healthy kids ourselves and really resonate with C.H. and the wonderful work in the community that they are doing.

Every year around the holidays, I donate to a charity on behalf of all my clients, in lieu of a client gift, and send my clients an e-card explaining the gift and how it was made on their behalf. It gets everyone psyched and feeling good. Typically I give to local hunger relief organizations. Having experienced hunger briefly as a kid, it makes me sad to think how many kids are set behind in life because their bellies are growling in school and they can't concentrate on gaining the skills that will help them break the poverty cycle. I think of all the single blue-collar moms who are working extremely hard to have a roof over their heads yet still too cash-strapped to feed their growing kids. The amount of working poor in this state keeps growing as the cost of living rises, and groups like Northwest Harvest continually struggle to meet the growing demand. (Their newsletter makes me cry!!!) We all have so much— I am happy to share some of what I have with others.

Hi, I am a counselor and life coach in the Everett area. I’ve been counseling for over 3 years now and most of my clients are women in need i.e. battered women or women with PTSD. Most women that are battered do not have a ton of money and are in such great trauma that counseling is unfortunately the last thing on their mind and something they need most. They live day to day and are just in survivor mode. It’s quite sad actually. So I donate a lot of my time to women in this situation.

My organization is called www.daphnasaves.org where I also have a directory of services that people in need can take advantage of. I am in the process of building out the site every day to make it more and more a master resource center for people in general.

I’ve also started volunteering at the Snohomish County Center for Battered Women www.snococbw.org where over 1500 women just in Everett get refused help every year because of lack of funding. There is a great need there and obviously something I’m extremely passionate about.

I commend anyone that gives time or money to any non-profit out there. There is such a need in our world for us to all band together and help the person we are standing next to. Not enough people actually step out and make a post like this and help make the awareness even greater.

Thank you, and if anyone has questions or comments please feel free to email me directly at daphna@daphnasaves.org

Daphna

I'd like to vouch for Daphna and her organization. She has heart and smarts; any contributions you send her way will be respected and appreciated.

I donate and am involved with several animal rescues, I love critters. I agree with Leila about Daphna Stein, she is an exceptional woman and smart with resources.

We donate time and resources and not cash directly. This sometimes comes in the form of free consulting and support for a Non-profit organization or building a pro bono website with organic optimization. The website portion is the most fun, it is like the difference between teaching someone to fish (develop the website) and giving someone a fish (donate cash). Both are needed but I think the former is more effective in bringing in the later.

Habitat for Humanity. www.habitat.org

Jimmy Carter Work Project

Jimmy Carter's involvement with Habitat for Humanity International began in 1984 when the former president led a work group to New York City to help renovate a six-story building with 19 families in need of decent, affordable shelter. That experience planted the seed, and the Jimmy Carter Work Project has been an internationally recognized event of HFHI ever since.

Each year, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter give a week of their time—along with their construction skills—to build homes and raise awareness of the critical need for affordable housing. The JCWP is held at a different location each year, and attracts volunteers from around the world.

I donate 10% (that seems to be the magic number) and I provide pro bono services for animal rescue groups. I usually do one or two projects for these groups each month.

I know this is an aged thread, but I just found this interesting link with guidelines for creative pro bono projects, for both the "client" and the provider.

Hi; I have been looking for ways to impact the Hispanic community but my few dollars here and there did not feel like it was amounting to much.

5 years ago, I joined Rotary International - I found that there are too many reasons to list why this is a great way to give back - so I'll stick to the issue....

As a member of Rotary, I have spearheaded many Hispanic projects in education, scholarships, gang prevention, wheelchairs in Mexico, food drive, diabetes awareness, etc. My few dollars is magnified 50 fold by the club, then doubled with a district matching grant and often doubled again by Rotary International.

My 10 dollars plus org/leadership skills become 2000 dollars in a flash and I can get a lot of work done with those multipliers.

Just a thought...

I have a question - are people deducting these donations as a business expense? My understanding is that only C corporations can deduct charitable contributions - but I'm wondering if you make it part of your marketing (i.e. we donate 3% of our profits to these charities..), then would it be deductible as a marketing expense? Otherwise, if you are an LLC like most of here probably are, you can only deduct it on your personal tax return and then only if you itemize deductions.