Holiday Giving…in Summer?

breiby@growyourgiving.orgIndividual & Family Giving

We see a significant uptick in our donors’ grants to charities during the winter holiday season, usually after Thanksgiving. It’s called “The Giving Season” for a reason. Nonprofits send out year-end reminders to make donations, and our donors respond generously.

But…why wait? Because you made the smart decision to organize your giving using a donor-advised fund, you can make grants from your fund at any time, without worrying about nonprofit organizations’ year-end giving deadlines.

Giving USA, the longest-running annual report on U.S. charitable giving, released its 2021 giving data this month. Coming out of 2020, when Americans responded to unprecedented needs with unprecedented donations, many were nervous that giving would fall in 2021. That was fortunately not the case. Americans gave more dollars in 2021 than ever before. However, after adjusting for inflation, total giving was down .07% in 2021.

Nonprofits are dealing with increased costs due to inflation and supply-chain issues now. And many are worried about declining stock prices. Can you wait until December to make your annual donations to charities? Of course. But you don’t have to. Not sure what’s best? Your favorite nonprofit organizations know. Consider reaching out to find out if they’d prefer to receive your December grants in July. You can use the “purpose” field on our grant suggestion form to indicate it is your 2022 annual gift.

Our Donor Services team is ready to help you make grants from your donor-advised fund whenever is most convenient for you, so log in and make a grant today, tomorrow, and/or a few months down the road. We’ll be here to help.

Authored by: Brenda Chumley, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Service