How to Donate a Car in Iowa

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Luz Luis and I'm here to tell you about how to donate a car for charity in Iowa. The first and most important thing to do is select a charity that you'd like to benefit from your car donation. You need to call the charity on the telephone, make sure to reach their headquarters, and ask questions like, what percent of your funding goes directly to your charitable mission, ask what their programs are. You never want to give to a charity that has more than a 25 percent administrative overhead. Then ask the charity if they accept car donations. You want to ask also what percent of the sales of your vehicle will go directly to their programs. You never want to donate to a charity that accepts less than 75 percent of the sales proceeds. There's a lot of third parties out there who pose in the name of charities, who have names substantially similar to the names of real charities. So make sure that you actually are donating to your charity of choice. The charity is going to give you a phone number or a website where you can donate your car, and you'll need to have a title for the vehicle. The charity is going to ask you to sign to release your ownership of the vehicle to that charity, and you're going to need to put in the buyer section or the new owner section the name of the charity to whom you're donating. Never leave blank the new owner section, the buyer section of the title, always make sure that it's reassigned to the charity that you're wanting to donate the car to. If you want to donate to the Kidney Foundation, the countries largest and most substantive car donation program, this year celebrates the 25th anniversary of the kidney cars program. Simply call 1-800-488-CARS, or you can donate on-line very fast, at kidneycars.org, that's kidneycars.org. Again you're going to want to have your title of ownership ready, you're going to answer a few questions, they'll come out and get the vehicle and then you'll get a receipt that you can use towards your tax purposes. If you have any trouble on the donation process make sure to stay in contact directly with the charity so that you can get your tax receipt for your tax deduction at the end of the donation process."