How to Donate a Car in the NYC Area

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Luz Luis and I am with the National Kidney Foundation and I'm going to be giving you a few tips about how to donate a car in New York. The first most important step is to choose a charity. Call the charity on the phone, ask them what their charitable mission is, find out how much money they spend on their programs, and how much goes to overhead. You really shouldn't donate to any charity that has more than a twenty-five percent overhead. Also ask them if they take car donations, and then ask 'em what that process is for car donation. Then you follow their instructions. Usually they'll give you a one-eight-hundred number or a website where you can donate. You go to the website that they refer you to. You probably shouldn't get a website or a phone number out of the newspaper or off of the Internet without first confirming with your charity of choice that that is in fact their car donation site or the car donation phone number. The next step is probably to get your title. You will need a title to donate a vehicle. If you don't have a title, most of the time you can go to the DMV in your area, or even the DMV website and apply for a duplicate title. When signing over a title to the charity, you'll need to make sure that you sign your name and date your signature to release ownership, and very importantly, you'll need to make sure that the buyers section or the new owner section of the title has the name of the charity that you're going to donate to. Never leave that portion of the title blank. Then simply follow the directions that they give you. Usually you're going to have to give the name of the person who's going to get the tax receipt, give some information about the vehicle like the year, make and model of the vehicle, what's wrong with the car, and then once the information's submitted, they're going to call you back and make arrangements to come out and pick up the vehicle. Depending on the charity, it's usually two to four days to go out and pick up the vehicle. If you choose to donate your car to the National Kidney Foundation which is the country's oldest and most substantiated car donation program, all you need to do is call 1 (800) 488 CARS, or you can donate on-line which is actually very simple. It's kidneycars.org. And again, you get out your title, you submit the information, they'll come out and get the car and then you can get a receipt that you can use for your tax purposes, if you itemize on your taxes, you can use it as a tax deduction. So again, to donate your car to the Kidney Foundation, you could call 1 (800) 488 CARS or donate on-line at kidneycars.org."