Giving season
Give at year’s end, without the rush.
The last weeks of the year bring most of the appeals, the matches and the deadlines. GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after US Thanksgiving, falls on . Here is a calm way through: decide where, check the claim, then handle the how.
Five steps
Decide where
Pick the causes you care about and see the charities independent evaluators rate highest for each, with their own figures and open questions.
Taste before you pour
Three questions to put to any appeal, from our donor’s tasting card. The first is the one that matters most: compared with what would have happened anyway?
Let urgency wait
Countdowns and matching campaigns are built to make you hurry. Before a match moves you, ask whether the matching money would have been given anyway. If it would, the match doesn’t add to the result. Why we ask.
If you can’t decide, let the evaluator decide
Each evaluator runs a fund that grants where it judges the need is greatest: the GiveWell Top Charities Fund and the Happier Lives Fund. It is a reasonable choice, not a lesser one.
Then handle the how
Shares, a donor-advised fund, an IRA gift if you are older, an employer match, and the paperwork the IRS asks for, in plain English with the IRS’s own words: give smarter, and the year-end checklist. US only, and not tax advice.
And afterwards
Every estimate we show is kept as a permanent, dated follow-up record, with a date when we will check it again. Giving well is a habit, not a deadline: the same plan works in March.
Prefer to read first? How to give well goes deeper, and our standards explain what we will and won’t do.