How to Donate a Car to Charity

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Luz Luis and I'm here to tell you how to donate a car to charity. The first thing you'd like to do is pick the charity that you'd like to receive your car donation, call the charity yourself, make sure that the charity benefits a mission, a charitable mission that you'd like to donate to. Ask that charity what percent of their proceeds go directly to fund their programs and what percent pays for administrative cost. You really do not want to donate to any organization that has an administrative cost more than 25 percent. Once you've established that that's your charity of choice then you'll want to ask if they accept your car donation. You'll also want to ask what percent of the sale of your donated vehicle will actually benefit the charity. Again, never donate your car to a charity that does not give more than 75 percent of the proceeds of the sale of your car to that charity. There are a lot of organizations that look like charities that are not, they're for profit organizations accepting your car donation and giving 5 to 10 percent of your car donation to a charity. So make sure to call a charity that you want to donate, make sure that that car goes directly to the organization that you choose to donate to. That charity will probably give you a 1800 number or a website. You'll want to get your title of ownership for your vehicle and then go to the website or call the phone number that that charity gave you to submit your donation information. They'll ask you information like, whose name goes on the tax receipt, what kind of car is it, year, make and model, they might ask you the VIN number for the vehicle, they'll ask you the condition of the vehicle, and also contact information so that they can go get the car. They'll need to know the contact phone number and the contact address. Once they have the information, generally it's about 2 to 4 days to go out and pickup the vehicle. They'll want you to sign the title over directly to the charity. Never leave the title blank. Sign to release your ownership of the car, date your signature and make sure that the buyer section or the new owner section of the title says the name of the charity that you're choosing to donate your car to, never leave this blank. So again, find your charity, call the charity directly, ask them questions about their charitable mission and how much goes to their charitable mission. Get the phone number for the car donation agency directly from that charity, and then follow their instructions. Make sure to stay close to the charity and keep in contact with them until you have your receipt in your hand for your tax deduction. If you itemize on your taxes, generally you can use that as a charitable donation."