Charitable Giving: Rob’s technique
The annual giving campaign just kicked off inside of Microsoft. I’m proud that Microsoft employees do such a good job giving time, money, and software to many different causes.
Just thought I would share my technique for giving...as I’ve found that it has made the donation process easier; helped me track + increase over time; and takes less of my time.
Giving
My technique goes something like this:
1) Get Automated – when I started to get automated, I took that year’s donations and set them up to automatically happen next year via payroll deduction. At Microsoft you can do this via an internal website: http://give
2) Review list annually – add and remove to your list of charities annually.
3) Review balance of giving – I have different tiers of charities…those I give the most to, those I give some to, etc…
4) Increase as you can – Each year, I try to bump up my total giving, usually equally across the board. If cash flow is tight that year, I may cut a charity and give more to the others.
5) Don’t give to all – I often tell charities that aren’t on my list that I’m already committed for the year. If they are worthy of consideration to add, I’ll give something to them in the middle of the year, and then add them to my annual list during the giving campaign.
6) Taxes – Make sure to take deductions for what you can give, at tax time. Keeping all the giving organized makes it easier to remember all your giving…
Happy giving!
Volunteering
I do spend time running a Y-Guides group that my son is in. I’d like to do more of this though…especially since Microsoft will donate more money for my time ($17/hr) if I spend more than 10 hours/year.