How to Donate a Car in Brooklyn

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Luz Luis, I work for the National Kidney Foundation and I'd like to give you some tips about how to donate a car in Brooklyn. The first, most important thing to consider when your donating a vehicle is which charity you'd like to choose. Make sure that the charity is in your area, benefits your local area and call that charity directly. Try not to get car donation programs out of the newspaper, on the internet without calling the charity itself to make sure that those are legitimate facilities to donate your vehicle to. The second thing is to ask the charity how much of the money that they get from car donations go directly to their programs. You should never donate a car to an organization that accepts less than seventy-five percent of the sales proceeds. Also, ask the charity what percent of their money goes directly to their own programs and how much is overhead. So just be sure to donate to a charity that is local, that is a charity that you'd like to benefit and that no less than twenty-five percent of their overhead goes to pay for their administrative costs. The second most important thing is to find the title to the vehicle, you'll need to sign the title over directly to the charity, never leave the title blank. So when you sign your title, make sure to release your ownership of the car with your own signature and date your signature and then make sure that the buyer section or the new owner section of the title has the charity's name in there. If you don't have a title you can go to your local DMV either on the DMV website, the New York website for the DMV or you can go to your local DMV office. Then you call the phone number that the charity has given you if it's not the charity itself to give the information about your vehicle, whose name goes on the receipt, what kind of car it is, where that car is located. And then once they have your information, whether you've submitted it over the phone, by mail or on the internet, they will come out and get your car and issue you a tax receipt. Generally, if you itemize on your taxes you can use the deduction as a tax deduction. So make sure to contact the charity and stay in direct contact with the charity during the car donation process and make sure that your contact with them is good. As for donating your car to the Kidney Foundation, it's a very simple process. You can go online to Kidneycars.Org, to donate online is the fastest and the simplest way to do it but you can also call 1-800-488-CARS. Those are the Kidney Foundation's numbers, they'll take the information from you over the phone or if you submit it online and within a couple of days they'll go out pick up the car, write your tax receipt and you can us that deduction on your taxes if you itemize."