Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, buddy, if you don't mind if
Speaker 1: I plug my November page real quick, please do. I
Speaker 1: am growing a mustache this month for November for uh
Speaker 1: for cancer research, specifically male prostate cancer research. That's right.
Speaker 1: And you can donate to my team, which would be
Speaker 1: pretty cool because you know, you get a free podcast
Speaker 1: and it'd be nice to grow a little money towards
Speaker 1: cancer research in the name of nice here, give him
Speaker 1: some money. He's growing on facial here to help a
Speaker 1: charitable organization engage in really important scientific research. That's right.
Speaker 1: And you can go to mobro dot c O slash
Speaker 1: Charles Bryant and that's my page, or just go to
Speaker 1: the November site. Type in Charles Bryan in the search
Speaker 1: bar and look for the picture of me. There's only
Speaker 1: a couple of ups out there. Check's wearing a red shirt.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, um, so what is that again? That's
Speaker 1: mo bro dot CEO slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: in advance. Yeah, that's nice chucking All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to it, hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: With me is always Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Oh, hold
Speaker 1: on a second, buddy, Yeah, I think you've got something
Speaker 1: you need to say. Oh yeah, um, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and plug our buddies over at Science Channel, our other home. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then they're airing punkin Chunking, the annual awesome fest of
Speaker 1: shooting pumpkins through the air as far as you can
Speaker 1: and then making them explode on contact. It's pretty great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a real thing. Uh. And then Science
Speaker 1: Shane ghosts every year and films it and they air
Speaker 1: it as what's become a Thanksgiving tradition. So they're gonna
Speaker 1: air it this Thanksgiving November twenty two and a pm. Right,
Speaker 1: that's right. And we are still waiting to get invited
Speaker 1: to go chunk punkins ourselves. We got invited last year,
Speaker 1: did we? I think so? Oh yeah, but it was
Speaker 1: like you guys can come if you want, if you
Speaker 1: happen to be in the Northeast. Yeah, but it wasn't like, uh,
Speaker 1: I wanted a formal invitation to participate. Okay, I got you. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, if you are in the punkin Chunking, Uh,
Speaker 1: then you might want to go online to check out
Speaker 1: the road to punk and Chunking. That's already up. There's
Speaker 1: some great video to search punkin p U n k
Speaker 1: I N chunking c h U n k I n
Speaker 1: and science in your favorite search engine and it'll bring
Speaker 1: that right up. Uh, and don't forget November twenty two,
Speaker 1: this Thanksgiving at a p m. On Science Channel, punkin
Speaker 1: Chunking the tradition. Yes, all right, you ready now, I'm ready, okay.
Speaker 1: Back today is our good friend and longtime producer Jerry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I alins we had the class machine. Yeah. Well, people
Speaker 1: are slow clapping all across the world right now, right,
Speaker 1: very sar Jerry, We're so like you're back so much.
Speaker 1: Just let know a slow clap is meaningful, yeah, but
Speaker 1: can very easily be turned sarcastic. Just kind of cut
Speaker 1: your head, decide. And I wonder what the first slow
Speaker 1: clap was in a movie? You know, such a trope
Speaker 1: at this point, but I wonder who invented it. A
Speaker 1: bet of that information is out there. I want to know,
Speaker 1: don't you want to know? I'm sure some movie website
Speaker 1: is probably tracked this down. First slow clap. Let's find it, everybody.
Speaker 1: Well wait, oh wait, uh, we should probably just go
Speaker 1: ahead and do let's do it, Um Chuck. Yes, have
Speaker 1: you ever given money to somebody who did nothing for
Speaker 1: you in return? Maybe didn't sell you a good or service.
Speaker 1: I just gave him the money. What do you mean
Speaker 1: just like uh someone panhandler, charitable organization? That's philanthropy. You're
Speaker 1: a philanthropist. Did you know that? Like that's all it takes.
Speaker 1: And even better, this is the bright shiny episode. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, I'm proud of this one. Um, have answer,
Speaker 1: p works. You don't even need money, donate your time.
Speaker 1: Your time is very valuable, Chuck. Yeah, And I think, well,
Speaker 1: I can't say this because I'm just speculating, but it
Speaker 1: seems to me that people are either like you know,
Speaker 1: my my time is too valuable, but like I can
Speaker 1: write someone to check yeah, or like I'm a little
Speaker 1: light but I can't give my time. Or you can
Speaker 1: put it like, well, the government doesn't let me deduct
Speaker 1: time that i've donated, but they will let me deduct
Speaker 1: the hundreds of thousands of dollars i've donated this year.
Speaker 1: They should let you deduct time because they've actually figured
Speaker 1: out I have like averages, like an hourly wage, volunteerism. Yeah, nice,
Speaker 1: that would be awesome. Let's get that in the tax code.
Speaker 1: That's a great idea. UM. You can, however, like if
Speaker 1: you were, say, um, donating your time by going down
Speaker 1: to like Louisiana to help clean up after a hurricane,
Speaker 1: or Kansas or Missouri to help clean up after a tornado,
Speaker 1: and you like bought a bus ticket or you drove,
Speaker 1: you can deduct transportation and costs. But once you get there,
Speaker 1: the government doesn't care about you. But you candiduc money
Speaker 1: as far as transportation. Oh and just regular contributions, right.
Speaker 1: It depending on on who you give to. And we
Speaker 1: have a very thrilling segment in this episode about the
Speaker 1: tax code, um, the ins and outs of it. Chuck
Speaker 1: is not very excited about it. I think this is
Speaker 1: kind of neat um. But we're talking about philanthropy and
Speaker 1: it's kind of become I don't want to say vogue.
Speaker 1: Maybe it has for the ultra rich, some of the
Speaker 1: richest people in the world, at least the richest people
Speaker 1: in America, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett yea to sign
Speaker 1: a pledge that Bill Gates created, the Bill and Melinda
Speaker 1: Gates Foundation created this thing. Saying, hey, we're going to
Speaker 1: donate at least half of our vast wealth, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to sign billionaires up to agree to this and
Speaker 1: then we'll just be super super super wealthy. Well, the
Speaker 1: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is this like superstar foundation
Speaker 1: that was like in the assets that controls is like
Speaker 1: the GDP of several nations. That's pretty amazing. It's like
Speaker 1: thirty seven billion dollars in assets right now. You can
Speaker 1: do a lot of good with that. And one of
Speaker 1: the people they signed on was Warren Buffett, and he's
Speaker 1: worth forty nine billion dollars right now. He's pledged of
Speaker 1: his fortune to the Gates Foundation afterward after he's dead,
Speaker 1: which I mean he's getting up there. So they may
Speaker 1: have about eighty billion dollars in assets in their control,
Speaker 1: which is a well, I was gonna say that's almost
Speaker 1: as much. It's about three quarters of the assets are
Speaker 1: the value the capital value of the most valuable corporation
Speaker 1: in the world, Apple, which ironically had a founder who
Speaker 1: may have never given a cent to charity. Oh really,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs died without officially having given any money to
Speaker 1: charity at all. Any He was notoriously stingy, and after
Speaker 1: his death there is a lot of talk like, Okay,
Speaker 1: did he did he really amass an eight billion dollar
Speaker 1: fortune and not donate any of it, And a lot
Speaker 1: of people were like, you know what, even if he didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, to heck with you, he gave this technology
Speaker 1: to the world and people are using it to better humanity. Well,
Speaker 1: he doesn't need to give money. And other people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have eight billion dollars in personal wealth, you
Speaker 1: need to give some of that for other things like
Speaker 1: water and stuff that you can't use an iPhone app for, right, Sure,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on how you feel about it all.
Speaker 1: And then there was another camp that was saying, hey,
Speaker 1: it's totally possible that he was just not a jerk
Speaker 1: and he donated a lot of money, But he did anonymously.
Speaker 1: He didn't want a bunch of glory or he didn't
Speaker 1: want a bunch of charities knocking down his door like, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: give us some too, for whatever reason. But you're saying
Speaker 1: that did not happen. He didn't give anonymously. No one knows.
Speaker 1: It's a mystery. Oh, I thought you said for sure
Speaker 1: he didn't give any money ever, because he was so
Speaker 1: cheap on paper. Oh there is no no record of
Speaker 1: him ever giving a cent to charity, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, Like I can't imagine having a billion dollars
Speaker 1: and not giving any of it away. But he Bill
Speaker 1: Gates approached him and he's like, nah, I'm not signing
Speaker 1: that pledge, and will you pick up the check? Right?
Speaker 1: Exactly right? Yeah, it's like I don't validate parking you again.
Speaker 1: I remember um Ted Turner kind of was one of
Speaker 1: the original guys to give a ton of money. When
Speaker 1: he gave the billion to the un I remember that
Speaker 1: was a really big deal at the time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know that he gave it to the u N
Speaker 1: What do they do with it? I don't know, because
Speaker 1: just they went in the general fun I guess so.
Speaker 1: But it was a big deal of the time. This
Speaker 1: was a long time ago, but like in the seventies
Speaker 1: or eighties, no nineties. I don't have to look, but
Speaker 1: it was long enough to go. I go such that
Speaker 1: it was a really big deal that someone gave a billion,
Speaker 1: A personal individual gave a billion dollars. I think at
Speaker 1: the time it might have been the largest individual donation.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's neat. I like that though, cool guy. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But this whole thing, this trend that's going on among
Speaker 1: the uber wealthy um is kind of this throwback to
Speaker 1: the beginning of the last century when like the Rockefellers,
Speaker 1: um and the Carnegies were setting up foundations that are
Speaker 1: still around today. Yeah, the Ford Foundation, the UM what
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller they created like a bunch of different trusts
Speaker 1: Dirty Rock. Yeah, University of Chicago. That was another thing
Speaker 1: that was invokes setting up huge universities, Cornell, Sanford, all
Speaker 1: those were rich people endowing universities. It was like there
Speaker 1: wasn't a university. Therefore, now there is. What's the one
Speaker 1: you always here on NPR, the Ford Foundation, the Joseph
Speaker 1: and Catherine. Man, it's so in my consciousness, I can't believe.
Speaker 1: I can't just split it up. You know, one of
Speaker 1: us will shout it in about forty five Yeah, exactly, okay,
Speaker 1: But anyway, so um, Yeah, you usually associate philanthropy with
Speaker 1: the uber wealthy, but it doesn't have to be. You
Speaker 1: can be poor and as a matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: poorest Americans contribute the highest percentage of their income of
Speaker 1: any income bracket in the country. Did you know that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did. And in fact, if the richest people contributed
Speaker 1: that same percentage, then um, there would be fewer problems
Speaker 1: in the world. I would say, So, you know, but
Speaker 1: the rich people give the most because they have the most. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got stats, but we'll get to those later. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about a couple of stats. How many charities
Speaker 1: are there in the country. Well, this says six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand in the article. I think it's a little out
Speaker 1: of date, is it? Because I found um, in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven there are approximately one million, eighty thousand, one
Speaker 1: thirty charitable organizations. Um. This says that was a decrease
Speaker 1: from so maybe this counts. Maybe this only counted, although
Speaker 1: this is it counts foundations. Yeah, I think there was
Speaker 1: an enormal increase. Yeah, because I have the feeling that
Speaker 1: this article is written about two thousand three. Okay, well
Speaker 1: that that would be a real big increase in a
Speaker 1: million a million plus. So, um, three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: five of which are religious congregations, which we'll get into
Speaker 1: that three thousand, um, and then uh, in the United
Speaker 1: States and two thousand eleven charitable giving total two hundred
Speaker 1: ninety eight billion dollars. Yeah. Um, and that was an
Speaker 1: increase from two dozen ten, which saw two six billion dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventeen from individuals, which is pretty amazing
Speaker 1: that se of all charitable gifts are from people. And
Speaker 1: if you factor in bequests like people's leaving stuff in
Speaker 1: their wills, which is also individuals and family foundations, it
Speaker 1: rises to eighty eight percent and more than that, I think.
Speaker 1: And then I saw percent on philanthropy dot com, the
Speaker 1: Chronical of Philanthropy. Uh well, I have foundations at fourteen percent,
Speaker 1: bequest at eight percent, and in last place corporate donations
Speaker 1: at five mm. Apparently they get the least. And you
Speaker 1: know what I just heard the other day. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is true. Maybe we can get confirmation.
Speaker 1: You know, when you go to the grocery store and
Speaker 1: they ask you to would you like to donate to
Speaker 1: marchup dimes or whatever like on your thing? Yeah, where
Speaker 1: is this coming? A listener about this was that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think maybe that was it. Someone said that they
Speaker 1: call those donations under their companies, under their corporation, and
Speaker 1: like like you know, the grocery store donated that money
Speaker 1: and gets the tllions of dollars and gets a text deduction.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but
Speaker 1: it's just something to consider for sure. Let's say let's
Speaker 1: say you're like, no, I'm not giving a cent to
Speaker 1: March of Dimes. Premature babies can all like um, And
Speaker 1: then but you really really care about muscular distrophe. So
Speaker 1: the time when they hit you up for that sham rock,
Speaker 1: be like, of course, not only will I give one dollar,
Speaker 1: will give five dollars? Well t s for you because
Speaker 1: you have no say whatsoever and where that money is going.
Speaker 1: Because they pull it all together in a plot that
Speaker 1: they shell out quarterly or annually, and then they take
Speaker 1: the tax reexplot. Whoever wrote that in um, like, I've
Speaker 1: stopped all together giving it a grocery store now, like
Speaker 1: I don't even consider I don't even feel bad saying no, Now,
Speaker 1: yeah I have. I have kind of stopped doing that too,
Speaker 1: just because if you're gonna give money, that will explain
Speaker 1: you should take the time to research and do it
Speaker 1: in a way that you feel good about and it's
Speaker 1: responsible and that you know where the money is going
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Let's talk about that buddy. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing they point out early in the in the
Speaker 1: article though, that we should say is that these days
Speaker 1: more and more nonprofits are seeking funds in different ways
Speaker 1: because um, a lot of government funding is declining and
Speaker 1: uh going away all together. So they need money more
Speaker 1: than ever. Uh and costs are going obviously. So that
Speaker 1: is why you will see websites and billboards and door
Speaker 1: to door and flyers and everything to get in touch
Speaker 1: with the potential. Uh. Don't donate or don't or don't
Speaker 1: or right, that's a good thing. They wrote. A word
Speaker 1: means that. Uh. But like you said, philanthropy doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be just about money. No it doesn't. But the
Speaker 1: word philanthropy means that you love humans. Phil means loving
Speaker 1: anthrope or anthropo or anthropy is humankind. So you love
Speaker 1: human kind by giving money to it. That's how you're
Speaker 1: demonstrating your love of humankind. Um. Checking out charity. So
Speaker 1: this is a big one. It's a big deal. I
Speaker 1: don't know how many people do this. I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I want to say I don't you know,
Speaker 1: but I mean, like normally the charitable giving I do
Speaker 1: is like, you know, whoever's bringing the Bell at that
Speaker 1: moment or something like that, or it was UM or
Speaker 1: it's on an individual basis, like it's not necessarily through charity, right,
Speaker 1: I hear you. UM. They say there are a few
Speaker 1: guidelines you can look for if you're checking out a
Speaker 1: charity to judge whether or not you think they're you know,
Speaker 1: spending money wisely, UM generally fifty of every dollar should
Speaker 1: go to the actual work the charity work, right, and
Speaker 1: then the other remaining for operational marketing administrative costs. So
Speaker 1: I I from what I saw, that's a very generous
Speaker 1: towards the charities. Percentage I saw of your costs for
Speaker 1: UM administration and fundraising should go to programs. But that's
Speaker 1: charity choices dot com that says that that's probably the ideal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. I think that the sixty cents is like
Speaker 1: anything less than this and you should really like examine.
Speaker 1: It means there's people at the top taking a big
Speaker 1: paycheck or they're not doing a very good job of
Speaker 1: managing their money. But it could also mean that if
Speaker 1: you look at the age of the charity or the
Speaker 1: size of the charity, like there's an economy of scale
Speaker 1: in raising money. So if you, if you are established,
Speaker 1: you have an established name, or you've been doing this
Speaker 1: a while, your your phone raising costs are going to
Speaker 1: be lower than say a new charity or a radical
Speaker 1: charity that that does controversial work, because they're gonna have
Speaker 1: a harder time generating money. So just because their fundraising
Speaker 1: costs are high, it doesn't mean that they're all like
Speaker 1: just enjoying lavish tuxedo based parties. And that's where all
Speaker 1: the money is based, rather than business casual based, rather
Speaker 1: than turtlenecks and jackets based. If you want to find
Speaker 1: out about a charity job in it, you can write
Speaker 1: a letter to the local charity registration office, usually within
Speaker 1: the state Attorney General's office, and six eight weeks later
Speaker 1: you might get a letter back. These days, you can
Speaker 1: go online and uh, I went online actually today and
Speaker 1: registered with guide Star and there's a charity. No has
Speaker 1: the money started coming in? Um No. Guide Star is
Speaker 1: one of the places you can go to check out
Speaker 1: other charities, and you have to register to log in.
Speaker 1: And because I wanted to check out, you know, like
Speaker 1: our friends at Cooperative for Education. Yes, like all the
Speaker 1: records are there for what you're looking for. I looked
Speaker 1: at it text form, and you know what my first
Speaker 1: thought was, Man, I feel so bad that Joe and
Speaker 1: those guys have to fill this thing out every year. Dude,
Speaker 1: it was so long, and but they don't have to
Speaker 1: file taxes. So yeah, true whatever, it's all awash, right,
Speaker 1: but you'll be glad to know they're you know, obviously
Speaker 1: doing great work. They're on the up and up. We
Speaker 1: knew that, Yeah, we definitely didn't know that. We saw
Speaker 1: it firsthand the the we checked those guys out personally,
Speaker 1: I stand behind Cohen. Uh. The Center for Better Better
Speaker 1: Business Bureau, it's another place. The Foundation Center is another place,
Speaker 1: and you can get basically have access to the numbers
Speaker 1: if you really want to check it out thoroughly. Right,
Speaker 1: So the form is gonna have like a general description
Speaker 1: of the work they do, the programs they do, who's
Speaker 1: running the thing, where their money is going? Uh? And
Speaker 1: I think it gets a little more specific than just
Speaker 1: like programs fundraising an administrative costs. Right, doesn't it break
Speaker 1: it down a little more like there's had all the
Speaker 1: different you know drives that they did, and it broke
Speaker 1: it down specifically to you know, if you were into
Speaker 1: looking all that stuff up. It's there, right, and I
Speaker 1: mean like if you really want to know, I mean
Speaker 1: if you give to like a mega charity like the
Speaker 1: Salvation Army in the United Way or something like that.
Speaker 1: Like they have more than than just one program, so
Speaker 1: they may be doing work that you don't necessarily agree with.
Speaker 1: So there's another reason to go look at for um
Speaker 1: because you'll see what what programs they're carrying out, like
Speaker 1: all of them. Yeah, well that's what the Common Foundation
Speaker 1: got in hot water, remember with the whole plan parent
Speaker 1: a thing last year or was that early this year?
Speaker 1: It was so at some point in the recent past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's you know, there's when you get that big.
Speaker 1: There are other associations you might want to know about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: depending on your your affiliation, you're socio political affiliation, that's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's about three ways that they're going to be spending
Speaker 1: their money though program services, and these are what you
Speaker 1: want your money to be going to most. If you
Speaker 1: want to just feel better about yourself at night, you
Speaker 1: don't want to think paid the water bill there at
Speaker 1: the building. You want to think I've put a sandwich
Speaker 1: in a needy kid's hand a good one too. Uh.
Speaker 1: Management operational costs is next. Like I said, it's a
Speaker 1: little less exciting to think about that, but they need
Speaker 1: to pay their rent and bills, definitely they need. And
Speaker 1: then you've got fundraising, yeah, which can really rack it up.
Speaker 1: I mean it's everything from like direct mailer's too lavish parties, um,
Speaker 1: if you're courting celebrities and they like that kind of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And a well run, well managed charity can take you know,
Speaker 1: X number of dollars whatever they're they're fundraising costs are
Speaker 1: and grow it exponentially, use it correctly. But there's also
Speaker 1: charities out there that don't know what they're doing and
Speaker 1: shouldn't get the same funding. If you've got over a million,
Speaker 1: there's bound to be a handful that aren't quite right,
Speaker 1: you know, and some that are outright scams. Yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I think we have one of those, don't. Well.
Speaker 1: There was a guy, um in this article, there's a
Speaker 1: guy in Texas who after a tornado I think hit Austin,
Speaker 1: he set up a charity that asked people the mail
Speaker 1: one dollar donations checks made out to cash and mail
Speaker 1: him too this po box and people did. He kept
Speaker 1: the money. Unsurprisingly, there's just there's a bad place for
Speaker 1: those people in their next life. Drifters. It's about the
Speaker 1: worst thing you can do. No one likes you when
Speaker 1: you're a grifter. Other grifters don't like you. Sure they'll
Speaker 1: make movies about you, but I mean, like that's about it, Josh.
Speaker 1: How would you go about so listening money if you
Speaker 1: were a charity, if you're a nonprofit, well not for profit, Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things I would do is probably take
Speaker 1: some of my initial UM money, my initial capital, and um,
Speaker 1: I would buy some mailing lists of other donors from
Speaker 1: other charities, which is extremely common practice these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of money to make doing that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's one reason they do it. They they like
Speaker 1: a charity, will will compile a mailing list and they'll
Speaker 1: sell it to other charities for income. Um. Yes, and
Speaker 1: again it's kind of practice. Uh. They also, um will
Speaker 1: sell them not necessarily just for the money. They may
Speaker 1: swap them with other charities. Because if you've donated to
Speaker 1: a charity, you've separated yourself I imagined from a lot
Speaker 1: of other people. UM. And you're somebody who may be
Speaker 1: willing to give money to a different charity. You two. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's one way I would do a direct mailing.
Speaker 1: I would hire a bunch of clean cut teenagers who
Speaker 1: are enthusiastic about the charity that they represented, and send
Speaker 1: him to the door clearly labeled through uniforms and possibly
Speaker 1: matching khaki pants uh as representatives of the charity, complete
Speaker 1: with identification, and lots of pamphlets about the programs that
Speaker 1: we have. Wow, you're like, you have the starter kit
Speaker 1: ready to go. It's I'm ready. I just need some
Speaker 1: an injection of funding. I don't know the programs yet,
Speaker 1: but everything else I've got lined up. Um. As this
Speaker 1: article points out, if you are getting more solicitation than
Speaker 1: you like, you can right the letter to the organization
Speaker 1: requesting your name be removed. Um. It may or may
Speaker 1: not work, and keep a copy of that letter, or
Speaker 1: you can just go to their website and unsubscribe. Well
Speaker 1: that was I think one of the things that gave
Speaker 1: this away was like, um, the it's saying like more
Speaker 1: and more charities are starting to go to the web
Speaker 1: now exactly, And I think the web was capitalized and
Speaker 1: maybe in quotation marks and then in parentheses afterwards it
Speaker 1: said the Worldwide Web. Um. Um, if you want to donate,
Speaker 1: you can give cash. If you're walking by a Salvation
Speaker 1: Army Santa Claus, you can't. I mean, it's a way
Speaker 1: to go. You can throw your change in the bucket
Speaker 1: if you've done the work. Though you're looking at Form
Speaker 1: nine nineties and stuff like that, that's probably supplemental to
Speaker 1: the actual charitable giving you're doing. So if you are
Speaker 1: like really seriously philanthropic, like it's a pastime of yours
Speaker 1: or a tax strategy as we'll see, Um, you you
Speaker 1: will probably want to write checks because they're good records
Speaker 1: that you want to keep. You might want to go
Speaker 1: down to your bank and get the canceled check after
Speaker 1: it's been cashed and um keep it in a safe
Speaker 1: deposit box. Yes, Or because seven you can donate on
Speaker 1: the internet with your credit card. Yeah, I hear. More
Speaker 1: and more charities are going to the web and they're
Speaker 1: just as many records as if you wrote that check,
Speaker 1: and it's all very legit these days. UM, probably don't
Speaker 1: need to worry about it unless, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: can't tell the difference between a reputable website at this point,
Speaker 1: then you know you're one of those people that falls
Speaker 1: for the Nigerian scam, I guess, but I feel bad
Speaker 1: for these people if it's all like making fun, But well,
Speaker 1: go listen to the con Artists episode. That will be helpful.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a companion this one. Sadly, UM. You can
Speaker 1: also if you are loaded, or if you really don't
Speaker 1: like your family, you can leave UM money, land, goods,
Speaker 1: your oldsmobile, all those things to charities still take them.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll will the my squatted land with that too.
Speaker 1: That would be very nice. Maybe like thanks for this
Speaker 1: thing that we can do nothing we have to mow
Speaker 1: this and Josh the final way, is UM really popular
Speaker 1: these days donating UM old things that you don't use anymore? UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been doing this forever in terms
Speaker 1: of like furniture and clothing and stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: nowadays things like computers, as we mentioned in a recent
Speaker 1: listener mail or an upcoming listener mail which you're still
Speaker 1: trying to get yeah about UM donating old computers to
Speaker 1: this group in Athens, Georgia. But there are lots of
Speaker 1: organizations that do that now. You can donate your car
Speaker 1: right that off. UM office supplies, building materials, emergency supplies.
Speaker 1: Those are huge obviously when catastrophe hits. Yeah, when the
Speaker 1: poop hits the fan, that's right. And you can write
Speaker 1: most of this stuff off as well. You can't, um,
Speaker 1: you can write off the fair market value of it.
Speaker 1: And if you go to an auction and you pay
Speaker 1: way more than some something's worth, you can write off
Speaker 1: whatever you paid over and above the fair market value
Speaker 1: of that thing. The sucker fee, I the philanthropic fee. Well,
Speaker 1: that's nice that they give it back, like, well, you
Speaker 1: were sorted an idiot for paying that much money, But
Speaker 1: go give it away and we'll at least let you
Speaker 1: write it off. Okay, you want to talk about tex
Speaker 1: stuff now? No, Well we're about to. So, uh there
Speaker 1: are two kinds of UM. Well, there's there's three kinds
Speaker 1: according to the UM I R S the tax Code,
Speaker 1: the U S tax Code. There's three designations and then
Speaker 1: a few subdis designations which we'll get into to the letter.
Speaker 1: It's the sexiest publication on the planet, UM the tax
Speaker 1: code for a charitable organization, right, fifty shades of green,
Speaker 1: that is what they should call it the most Have
Speaker 1: you read that? Now? Emily didn't? What did she say?
Speaker 1: She likes sweating all the time. Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was pretty racy. That's crazy. She blew through the
Speaker 1: series and you know, a couple of weeks that person
Speaker 1: was earning like a million dollars a day or something
Speaker 1: some crazy amount from that for weeks for writing smut.
Speaker 1: I guess good for her. It was a lady, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's got a man's name, Frank, no initials. That's
Speaker 1: very mask in my opinion. J. K. Rowling sounds like
Speaker 1: a dude. You think. I never really thought about it.
Speaker 1: And isn't it like P. D. James? It almost sounds
Speaker 1: like pet anyway. UM. The three tax codes, yes, So
Speaker 1: the one that everybody's heard of, it, it's most familiar
Speaker 1: with is the five oh one C three. You know
Speaker 1: you've heard of a five oh one C three corporation.
Speaker 1: Don't pretend like you haven't, Like you're too cool to
Speaker 1: know about. There's the three, four, and five. Your favorite,
Speaker 1: I guess is the three. So the five one three,
Speaker 1: that's the Yeah, that's the that's the money organization. That's
Speaker 1: the one that's like, UM, it covers that. Let's see
Speaker 1: prevention of cruelty to children or animals, those kind of organizations,
Speaker 1: UM educational UM, charities straight up charity charities that helped
Speaker 1: like the poor and the needy, religious charities, scientific organizations
Speaker 1: yea yeah, um favorite ones that support national or international
Speaker 1: amateur sports, which is pretty sweet. Yeah, you can give
Speaker 1: like to the USK team, right if Don King's involved, though,
Speaker 1: do not you don't look for a text deduction at
Speaker 1: the organization. Um. And then uh testing related to public safety,
Speaker 1: which I was trying to figure out what that would be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe an organization that goes around sitting
Speaker 1: off incendiary devices and fallout shelters to see if they
Speaker 1: hold up. Yeah, I'm not sure. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: like auto safety, but it seems like that would be
Speaker 1: the auto companies privately doing that. There are like the um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are, That's what it is. So anyway, um, all
Speaker 1: of those except for the public safety one you can
Speaker 1: write off like without thinking twice without prejudice. Yeah yeah right, Um,
Speaker 1: unless these any that that is a not for profit
Speaker 1: or nonprofit corporation that's overseas, yes, and it means that
Speaker 1: they're based overseas, uh not necessarily that they do most
Speaker 1: of their work overseas, right, that's where they're they're incorporated
Speaker 1: is overseas. Yeah, because COED for instance, that's why I
Speaker 1: mentioned it. They are based out of Cincinnati, even though
Speaker 1: the work they do is usually in Guatemala. Right, that's
Speaker 1: an excellent point. Yeah. Um, so that's the five oh
Speaker 1: one C three. You've got public charity, UM, you've got
Speaker 1: the private foundation. And a private foundation is UM. It
Speaker 1: gets its income from investments, endowments, and then it's basically
Speaker 1: a charity for other charities yea. Then grants that to
Speaker 1: whoever they see fit, right. And that's a good one
Speaker 1: to invest in UM because they are they usually know
Speaker 1: exactly what they're doing more than you you know, and
Speaker 1: they're like their whole their work is charity, so like
Speaker 1: they're looking for up and coming ones once they're doing
Speaker 1: really great work, that kind of stuff. What's well Mann
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Uh. And then you have a
Speaker 1: private operating foundation, right, Yeah, and they donate to directly
Speaker 1: to the causes UM instead of granting uh grants to
Speaker 1: other charities. The private foundation. If you give to one
Speaker 1: of those, you may not necessarily be able to deduct it,
Speaker 1: but a public charity or a private operating foundation, most
Speaker 1: of the time you'll you'll get the full deduction. I
Speaker 1: think that's up to about fifty of your adjusted gross income.
Speaker 1: So if you make fifty dollars and you donate five thousand,
Speaker 1: you can write that off. It'll take that right away.
Speaker 1: That's that's a pretty good tax strategy. It is incorporations
Speaker 1: can um are allowed to deduct all contributions up to
Speaker 1: usually about ten percent of their taxable income, which that's
Speaker 1: where it ends. But I mean, think about it. What
Speaker 1: about corporations that like have zero taxable income, like because
Speaker 1: of their fancy accounting like to they donate at all?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have a big question about that.
Speaker 1: And that was quite cynical there, and I don't like cynicism.
Speaker 1: I said, that's probably where they stopped donating, is when
Speaker 1: they reach that threshold. Not necessarily true, but you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this well, you know, the the text the deductible
Speaker 1: charitable contributions as it stands now is kind of under
Speaker 1: threat actually because the Bush tax cuts are going to expire.
Speaker 1: Possibly if the Bush tax cuts expire, then um for
Speaker 1: the for those highest income brackets, they'll lose about eight
Speaker 1: percent of their UM deduction abilities, which I would think
Speaker 1: would show a pretty steep drop in charitable giving in
Speaker 1: that tax bracket. Yeah, and even though it's only five
Speaker 1: that's you know, still how much was it? Like fourteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars? And then Obama has a proposal that I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's going anywhere or not to basically
Speaker 1: like set of your adjusted gross income is the maximum
Speaker 1: you can deduct for higher income tax brackets. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it will go anywhere though, but we
Speaker 1: may see charities like really getting hurt in the future.
Speaker 1: I'm so ambivalent right now, you're not You're angry behind
Speaker 1: the ambivalence. What about the C four Oh boy, the
Speaker 1: C four that that covers um that covers organizations that
Speaker 1: lobby on behalf of specific causes like social welfare and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Uh yeah, so remember, um, there was
Speaker 1: a big how about but I can't remember. I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember it before and I can't remember it now. It
Speaker 1: was a lobbying group that had five oh one C
Speaker 1: three status. No, but yeah, but it was they were
Speaker 1: lobbying from behalf of social values. Remember McDonald's got called
Speaker 1: out and like left, like all these huge corporation is
Speaker 1: like left this lobbying group. It was like a chamber
Speaker 1: of commerce, arm and somehow they have five three status.
Speaker 1: It was a big call for them to to go
Speaker 1: back or to be forced into which would mean a
Speaker 1: lot they'd have to pay taxes. That also will include
Speaker 1: volunteer fire departments, which I thought was interesting, and civic
Speaker 1: organizations and they are not deductible at charitable donations UM
Speaker 1: to the C fours except for volunteer fire departments and
Speaker 1: UM Veterans Organization. Yeah, exactly, So I guess you up
Speaker 1: to the v A or the vf W v W
Speaker 1: or the American Legion, maybe even the not the French
Speaker 1: Foreign Legion though they're overseas. That's right. The C six, Josh,
Speaker 1: the C six, that's that's actually I guess it should
Speaker 1: be that that UM organ that lobbying group shouldn't be
Speaker 1: a five on three. It should be a C six
Speaker 1: because this covers trade associations and boards, chambers of commerce, UM,
Speaker 1: real estate. Yeah, we can't forget those, and you can't
Speaker 1: deduct any or any gifts to those as well. Basically
Speaker 1: just five one three. And you want to make sure
Speaker 1: it's not a private foundation and that's a private operating
Speaker 1: and that's if you're donating money. But we mentioned you
Speaker 1: can donate your time is a volunteer, which I think
Speaker 1: it's kind of a neat way to go about it
Speaker 1: if you're into like, you know, grassroots, hitting the ground,
Speaker 1: getting your hands dirty. Um. They have figured out that
Speaker 1: actually this article is I don't know, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: have a new staff for that. They have figured out
Speaker 1: that it is. UH. An estimated dollar value of volunteering
Speaker 1: time is twenty eight an hour in two thousand nine. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's great. And so in two thousand nine, the volunteer
Speaker 1: time totaled about hundred and sixty nine billion dollars. I
Speaker 1: wonder how much of that has wasted though, because there
Speaker 1: in this article they cite ups Survey UPS Foundation. UM.
Speaker 1: That was taken its back, but at the time they
Speaker 1: found that like volunteers said that they stopped volunteering because
Speaker 1: they felt that their time was wasted volunteering. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have had experience like that, UM, and I get it,
Speaker 1: you know, because if you don't have a lot of time,
Speaker 1: you're like, I want to give my time, you want
Speaker 1: to have it be used. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: call out who this was, but it was a group
Speaker 1: in town. Volunteer showed up and like they didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do with me, and I did it a
Speaker 1: couple of times. They didn't know what to do with
Speaker 1: me until Vince I was like, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to come back like sit around here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go find somewhere else or maybe you should get your
Speaker 1: act together a little bit more. Um. But it's tough,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's easy to criticize, it's tough
Speaker 1: to manage volunteers. It's one of the most difficult I
Speaker 1: think it said in the article one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult parts of running one a nonprofit is is managing
Speaker 1: and maintaining your volunteers because they Walton brand new and
Speaker 1: I'm sure they want to be the one doling out soup,
Speaker 1: you know, where we really need someone to lift those
Speaker 1: boxes in the back um, which is unglamorous. It's unglamorous,
Speaker 1: and so it's probably not the easiest thing in the
Speaker 1: world to manage expectations and what they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing and training and the like. You know, I got
Speaker 1: some stats. Sixty of households give the charity UM average
Speaker 1: household contribution two thousand, two hundred and thirteen UM. Majority
Speaker 1: of charitable dollars went to religion, education percent, grant making,
Speaker 1: nine percent, human services. It just says percent. They're like
Speaker 1: making electricity with bodies. Yeah, I think that's exactly what
Speaker 1: it is. Um. Ninety eight percent of high net households
Speaker 1: give the charity, which is great, um and beneficial for
Speaker 1: your tax status. I'm not saying it's why, but you
Speaker 1: know it's good that that's there at least. And then
Speaker 1: um six percent of people volunteer and those and religion
Speaker 1: leads away again at which leads us to did you
Speaker 1: read the article? I skimmed it. Yeah, let's hear what
Speaker 1: you got to say. Well, Mitt Romney was criticized recently
Speaker 1: because and this is criticism by Bill Maher, so take
Speaker 1: it with a grain of salt. Um. But he counted
Speaker 1: sixteen point five percent of his income his charitable donations, uh,
Speaker 1: a lot of which went to the Mormon Church. So
Speaker 1: that brings up an important thing tithing. If you are
Speaker 1: a believer of the Bible, you were supposed to tie
Speaker 1: off the top. It's off the top, is it? According
Speaker 1: to the Reverend Wealth Joy? Okay, and UM, you can
Speaker 1: write that off, which I didn't under I didn't know
Speaker 1: that until today. I didn't either. Um, so Bill Maher
Speaker 1: says that, you know, some churches and like these well
Speaker 1: to do organizations like symphony orchestras, colleges and universities with
Speaker 1: large endowments shouldn't count as charities any longer. So he's
Speaker 1: kind of slinging some harsh words there. Um, but that
Speaker 1: sort of says that the only people who can benefit
Speaker 1: from charity or the poor. And that's just not necessarily
Speaker 1: the case, because then you've got like hospitals and libraries
Speaker 1: and museums and these other things. Um, animal organizations. Uh,
Speaker 1: that would be thrown out under the Bill Maar model.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I mean all you need to do
Speaker 1: is inject a little capitalism, like make the Humane Society
Speaker 1: in the SPC a really kind of compete for money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one left standing is the one that gets to survive. Um.
Speaker 1: And uh, they did a study on church budgets and
Speaker 1: two thousands, so this is not super updated. UM and
Speaker 1: Christian Today did this and found that an average church
Speaker 1: budget is about two dollars went to staff compensation for facilities,
Speaker 1: sixtent for missions, nine percent for church programs, six for
Speaker 1: admin and supplies, three percent for denominational fees, and three
Speaker 1: for other handling handling fees, and uh, one of the
Speaker 1: things that how much was that? How much of that
Speaker 1: we really want to charity? Well, that's the thing though,
Speaker 1: the church itself qualifies as a charity with its non
Speaker 1: exempt status. So like I guess the six percent for
Speaker 1: mission work would be charity, nine percent for church programs,
Speaker 1: A lot of that could be charity. But one of
Speaker 1: the issues is that, but is that also like the
Speaker 1: music program. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's one of
Speaker 1: the issues with with considering churches charities. And this is
Speaker 1: written by a Christian organization saying that churches need to
Speaker 1: get better about um connecting the giving to the outcome
Speaker 1: because people like knowing like the literal outcome of where
Speaker 1: I'm giving my money, whereas churches apparently are not very
Speaker 1: good at tying that together. And it's really just like
Speaker 1: it's your tithe it's just for everything, instead of it's
Speaker 1: for this program, in this program, it's used in this way.
Speaker 1: So you know the solution to that, what's that? Charging
Speaker 1: admission to church? If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: philanthropy or philanthropy, if you say things like a weirdo,
Speaker 1: you can type that word into the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. P h I L A
Speaker 1: N T h R O p y philanthropy uh and
Speaker 1: I say a handy search bar or search bar or
Speaker 1: something like that, which means it's time for listener mayo
Speaker 1: uh and live listener mail today. Oh goodness, since we're
Speaker 1: covering philanthropy, we're gonna support co ED because we haven't
Speaker 1: done it in a while. Okay, awesome, you want to
Speaker 1: tell them about the organization, Josh. For those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know, you can go back into the deep
Speaker 1: archives and find our Guatemala Adventure Part one and two.
Speaker 1: It's the I think one and only time you can
Speaker 1: clearly here Jerry speaking. But we went to Guatemala to
Speaker 1: see firsthand with the Cooperative for Education does. And what
Speaker 1: they do is they take money UM from different donors,
Speaker 1: basically pile it all together and buy enough books for
Speaker 1: a class in Guatemala. Then those kids pay rent on
Speaker 1: those books something that's affordable. It's like two bucks a
Speaker 1: year or something like that UM that the average Guatemala
Speaker 1: and family can afford fairly easily, and that goes into
Speaker 1: pool helping nes grow. And then at the end of
Speaker 1: that year or a couple of years or a few
Speaker 1: years when the books are worn out, that that school
Speaker 1: has the money to replace them. So it's a self
Speaker 1: sustaining model. Um And basically you can help a kid
Speaker 1: get out of poverty by getting an education where otherwise
Speaker 1: they would be working in the field and making tortillas,
Speaker 1: which we found out they do in addition to going
Speaker 1: to school normally. So they do great work. We've seen
Speaker 1: it firsthand. We stand very firmly behind this this organization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not only they have a book program, any computer
Speaker 1: lab program, so some of your money can go to
Speaker 1: computer labs and and getting these kids not only computers,
Speaker 1: but training, which it's the same model. It's just what
Speaker 1: rather than like set a book, that's like a computer lab. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Yeah, I mean stuff these kids have never
Speaker 1: seen before, and they're and they're learning how to use computers,
Speaker 1: getting better jobs. It's good stuff. Yeah. All right, So
Speaker 1: you can visit uh Cooperative for Education dot org and
Speaker 1: that's different from their old website. So go to Cooperative
Speaker 1: for Education dot org and you can there's a donate
Speaker 1: now button at the top right of the screen, or
Speaker 1: if you want to go down there, you can go
Speaker 1: on one of the tours. Tours, we've had some listeners
Speaker 1: go yeah, um, Guatemala got under Jerry's skin. She she
Speaker 1: became very very much involved with the co ED after
Speaker 1: that first tripman returned several times and when she went,
Speaker 1: she would go and there'd be stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: listeners that went because they listened to the Guatemalan adventures.
Speaker 1: That's right, um, and they for you can go February
Speaker 1: nine or August six through eleventh to the Land of
Speaker 1: Eternal Spring and you will not regret it. And again,
Speaker 1: what's the website again? Cooperative for Education dot org. Okay, cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: go give your money is well spent there check out
Speaker 1: their form. Yeah, or volunteer or help somebody, help help
Speaker 1: a panhandler out who knows. Just be philanthropic not misanthropic. Right,
Speaker 1: we need a T shirt that says that, I bet
Speaker 1: there's one out there and hey chuck. Yeah, let's just
Speaker 1: take this moment to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have traditions like sitting around
Speaker 1: the table and like telling each other what you're thankful for.
Speaker 1: I like doing that. Maybe you don't even have family, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe you have no one in the world. Surely there's
Speaker 1: something for you to be thankful for that. Yeah, dig
Speaker 1: digne people, I'm thankful for that wall in that carpet square. Deep,
Speaker 1: that's awful. Deep. Are you ready so after Chuck's speel
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, whatever your tradition is, we hope you're safe
Speaker 1: and toasty and happy and you have the warmth of
Speaker 1: the Great Turkey in your spirit. That's good. Thanks. We
Speaker 1: should make that our sign off every year for Thanksgiving. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we will, the great, great Warmth of the Turkey spirit,
Speaker 1: the great the warmth of the Great Turkey in your
Speaker 1: spirit or something like that. It could use a little
Speaker 1: tinkering before we trade market. Agreed, let's get to work
Speaker 1: on that. Okay. Well until then, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, be safe. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us to
Speaker 1: wish us Thanksgiving tidings, even if you're from Canada, which
Speaker 1: celebrates Thanksgiving us some preposterously early time, right, We'll still
Speaker 1: accept your tweets at s Y s K podcast, say
Speaker 1: hi on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: and as always, you can send us in electronic mail
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com for more on
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