What are the important things I should consider when selecting a car donation charity?

First of all, it is important that you understand what the mission and purpose of the car donation charity and whether your goals and ideals are in line with that purpose. There are so many different car donation charities out there accepting vehicles and other donations that you should make sure to choose one whose charitable work you fully support.

A big benefit of doing a car donation is getting the tax deduction or write-off for the value of the vehicle. In order to receive this tax benefit, you should make sure that the charity or organization that you are donating to is classified by the US government as a 503(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Without this designation for the car donation charity, you will not be able to claim the full tax deduction for your donation.

You should also find out more about the charity in terms of processing their car donations. There are many costs associated with accepting, processing, and selling vehicles to get the money to go toward charitable work. You should look at something called an efficiency rating for each charity which identifies the proportion of the value of the donated vehicles they received that actually goes toward charitable work efforts in the end. In general, car donation charities that have their own donation pick up and processing companies will have better efficiency ratings.

Can the car donation charity I select pick up or tow away my vehicle to be donated or do I have to drop it off? What if the car is not in running condition?

Yes, the general quick answer is that these are all options for donating your vehicle whether it is in running condition or not; you can usually arrange to have it picked up, towed away, dropped off at their processing location, or dropped off at a mutually agreed upon location. Each car donation charity should not no problems arranging a pick up of any vehicle donation as long as the value of the vehicle will exceed any costs to the charity in terms of pick up, processing, and sale of the car.

What do I need to be aware of when I donate my vehicle to the charity?

Before you actually donation, in preparation for the car donation, you should collect the proper identification and vehicle title documents for easy transfer. If you cannot find the title documents you should let the car donation charity know ahead of time so that they can have specialists work through the extra paperwork for the title transfer. Also, you should be aware that in order to deduct any car donated value of over $500, according to the new tax regulations, you can’t just claim the vehicle value; you will have the claim the actual sale price of the vehicle when the car donation charity sells the car to benefit from the donation. You will have to get documentation from the charity about the time and the price of the sale transaction in order to get the full tax deduction benefit.

I have looked through some car donation charity listings and really cannot find one that I like. What should I do?

Perhaps you are going about finding a car donation charity in the wrong manner and should try a more broad search of charities. Know that almost all charities are able to accept car and vehicle donations in some fashion even if they have to use a car donation processing service or company. So, the best way of finding a car donation charity (if looking through listings of them do not work) is simply to find a general charity or organization whose mission you support. Do not look through lists of car donation charities but rather all charities. Once you’ve identified a charitable organization you want to support, you can check if they accept car donations and most of the time they will.