Do More Good

Wishing you could give more—or more effectively— to the causes that matter to you? Here’s how.

It’s the end of the year—I mean the very end of the year, the ball-dropping, last-square-on-the-calendar finale—and I’m once again crunching to make my charitable donations before the fireworks flare and the first notes of “Auld Lang Syne” are struck up. I give for the reasons most of us do—I look at the world, see all the broken places, and hope that I can help to fix at least a few of them. And I give at the last minute because I’m a habitual procrastinator who nevertheless wants to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Service’s current-year tax deduction for charitable giving. But lately I’ve begun to wonder if there might be a better way—one that would allow me to give without the attendant stress, and maybe even give more. And in this I suspect I’m not alone.

As a whole, Bergenites are a charitable bunch. By one metric, known as the contributor index—arrived at by dividing the number of residents who list charitable donations on their tax returns by the total number of residents who file tax returns—we’re the fifth most generous county in New Jersey. On the other hand, we’re the state’s fourth wealthiest county, and we have the state’s highest amount of disposable income (and the country’s tenth highest), so we’ve got a lot of Benjamins lying around that could be doing more good in the world. And so we have to ask ourselves, as I’d asked myself: Could we be more efficient—and yes, even more generous—givers?

DEDUCT WISELY

The answer, according to Stephanie Burke, an Oak land-based, advice-only financial advisor, is yes—for most of us. “When it comes to charitable giving,” she says, “the more the IRS allows you to deduct for tax purposes, the more money you have in your pocket and the more you’re then able to give.” But taking a charitable deduction is about to get a lot more complicated. What you should know:

• Decide whether—and when—to itemize. If you’re among the 90 percent of taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions, you won’t be able to deduct your charitable contributions in 2025. But starting next year, thanks to what the Trump Administration called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), individuals filing singly will be able to deduct up to $1,000 and couples filing jointly can deduct up to $2,000. If you don’t plan to itemize this year or next, says Burke, “you might consider donating on Jan. 1 of 2026 rather than in 2025, because then you can take the charitable donation.” (She notes that this only applies to cash donations and not non-cash items such as clothing and furniture.) If you don’t itemize but make large charitable contributions, Burke suggests you consider bundling—combining several years’ gifts in a single year and itemizing your deductions in that year. Keep in mind that the OBBBA will also affect those who regularly itemize their deductions: Starting in 2026, itemizers will be allowed to deduct only those amounts that exceed 0.5 percent of their adjusted gross income (AGI). If your AGI is $100,000, say, and you’ve given $5,000 to charity, $500 of those donations won’t be deductible.

LET CHARITIES HELP YOU

That’s the hard-cash part of the equation, but there are also ways to make giving easier without that extra cash in your pocket. You can:

• Sign up for automatic contributions. Virtually all charities will allow you to donate a specific amount each month, automatically charging that amount to your bank account or a credit card. Richard Kaufman, a resident of North Arlington, for example, makes a monthly donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides aid of all kinds to wounded veterans and their families; he also plans to start donating monthly to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, which supports veterans as well as first responders injured on 9/11. “I’m a wounded warrior myself,” he says, explaining his choice of charities. He finds it easier to give monthly, noting that suggested monthly donations to Tunnel to Towers start at $11, a very manageable amount for him and his wife, Michele. (Your employer may also allow you to make a monthly donation through a payroll deduction; to find out if that’s an option, contact your human resources department.)

• Look for matching donation challenges. These fundraising initiatives enlist corporate or other wealthy donors to match gifts dollar for dollar, effectively allowing you to double your gift. They’re most likely to occur on Giving Tuesday—the Tuesday following Thanksgiving—or at the end of the year.

• See if the company you work for will match your donations. Check with your human resources department or use an online search tool like Open Secrets (opensecrets.org).

• Include in your will the charities that matter most to you. There are several ways to make what are known as charitable bequests, including giving a fixed amount of money or a percentage of your estate’s total value.

GIVE MOST BY GIVING TO THE BEST

We can also give more efficiently, says Roger Moss, a financial advisor with the Montville Group who has many clients in Bergen County, by choosing the most efficient charities—those that use the vast majority of your donation to help people rather than to run the charity or raise money. To do that, you can:

• Vet your charity before you donate. Nonprofit charity monitors like Charity Navigator (charitynavigator.org) and Charity Watch (charitywatch.org) rate nonprofits based on the percentage of donations that go directly to the causes they’ve pledged to help versus the percentage that go toward administrative costs. Be aware, warns Moss, that some very well-known nonprofits don’t necessarily get high ratings, so it’s critical to do your homework before you give.

FIND WAYS TO GIVE MORE

The IRS itself offers a number of ways you can maximize your charitable donations, beyond simply deducting them on your tax return. They include:

• The qualified charitable distribution (QCD). If you have a retirement account such as an IRA or a 401K, you’ll have to start withdrawing a so-called required minimum distribution (RMD) at a certain age—most likely 73. Normally you’d have to pay tax on whatever amount you withdraw, but by making a QCD, you can donate some or all of your RMD to charity, tax free. “I absolutely love this idea,” says Burke. “It’s like free money.”

• The charitable remainder trust (CRT). If you’ve done well in the stock market and want to spread some of that wealth around, consider a CRT. When you donate stock to the trust, you’ll receive a partial tax deduction, as well as an income stream—generally, a percentage of the property in the trust—for the rest of your life. When you die, the remainder of the fund will go to your designated charity or charities.

• The donor-advised fund (DAF). DAFs, sponsored by nonprofit organizations, allow you to shelter highly appreciated assets—stocks, for instance—from capital gains tax. You can donate to the funds now and decide down the line which nonprofits you’d like to contribute to. Burke recommends consulting a financial advisor before committing to a DAF, to find out whether you’re eligible and learn about possible advantages and disadvantages.

GIVE THROUGH YOUR BUSINESS

Whether you run a one-person operation or head up a large corporation, giving to charity through your business is another way to increase charitable impact. As a business owner, you can:

• Give cash. This can help lower your business taxes. If you’re an individual proprietor, you can deduct gifts up to 60 percent of your adjusted gross income. Corporations can deduct up to 25 percent of their taxable income.

• Match employee donations. You’ll not only be giving through your business, but you’ll also be giving more, by encouraging your employees to give. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by the London-based international professional services network Deloitte, 84 percent of donors said they’d be more likely to give if the companies they worked for matched their donations. And in a survey by the nonprofit America’s Charities, one in three people surveyed said a match would encourage them to give more. You can match donations dollar for dollar or at a percentage. For more information, go to America’s Charities (charities.org) and search “matching gift programs.”

• Donate goods or services. This can also lower your taxes. And, says Moss, “It can help to boost employee morale.” Matt Coolidge, for instance, is the owner of Units, a moving and portable-storage company that serves northern New Jersey. This year, he was the recipient of Bergen Volunteers’ Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility award for his extensive corporate giving, including the donation of containers to the nonprofits Bergen Volunteers and the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. “My wife and I believe that the world can work for everybody,” he says, “so we get ourselves involved in helping people improve the quality of their lives.”

GIVE OF YOURSELF

Last year, some 28 percent of Americans formally volunteered their time to causes they cared about. Compared with the 73 percent who donated money, that first figure may seem low, but it’s often harder to give time than cash. If you want to give of yourself but worry you don’t have the time, consider some options:

• Give blood. Every two seconds, someone in America needs a blood transfusion, but only 3 percent of us actually donate blood. The process usually takes under an hour, and you can give once a year or every few months. To learn more, go to Red Cross Blood (redcrossblood.org).

• Volunteer online. It’s an option increasingly embraced by Gen Z, who see it as an obvious extension of their online lives, but volunteering online is a time-saving choice for anyone who wants to make a difference. To find opportunities, go to Catch a Fire (catchafire.org).

• Start—or stay—small. Micro-volunteering is a relatively new trend that allows you to give in small ways without committing more of your time than 15 minutes to a couple of hours. You might, say, sign on to send postcards or write thank-you notes for a nonprofit or work a phone bank for an hour or two. You can contact local organizations and ask if they offer opportunities to micro-volunteer or offer your time to nonprofits already recruiting micro-volunteers, such as United Nations Volunteers (unv.org), Translators Without Borders (translatorswithoutborders.org) and Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org). Even if you give small, you’ll be able to face that new page on the calendar not with wistful regret, but with justified pride.