Episode 1070: Giving of Your Money

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1070 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hey,

[00:00:07] Nick Pavlidas: I'm Nick pav leaders from the confessions of a terrible husband podcast. I challenge you to not be a terrible husband or wife or friend like me by being intentional about stewarding your relationships. One way to be inspired to be a better husband is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my.

[00:00:29] Scott Mader.

[00:00:31] Scott Maderer: The truth is before you give money to charity, it's not about making sure that your own financials are perfect. It's not about making sure that you have all of the money that you need and these sorts of things. Instead, it's really about recognizing that giving some portion of your income over is again about turning.

[00:00:52] That idea of having a generous heart. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. [00:01:00] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:12] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that. Can impact the world.

[00:01:21] And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about how to be wise when giving money to charity. Also talk about some easy ways to do it. If that feels too complicated. And I also talk about some things you should do before you decide to give to.

[00:01:39] As we talk about stewarding your treasures. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime. It turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small [00:02:00] commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:02:02] If you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. One of the things I hear from people when I talk to them about giving money to charity is that they don't feel sometimes that it's safe or that the charity that they're giving money to uses the money responsibly.

[00:02:22] They're afraid that they're going to waste that money. And I actually wanted to talk a little bit about ways that you can really be wise when you're giving to charity. First off if you're giving to a local organization or maybe your local church get involved with the organization, volunteer to serve in the organization in some way, get to know the people that can help you learn more about where your money is going.

[00:02:50] You can also ask them for their financials. If they're a legitimate charity, they'll usually have a way of reporting how they use their money and what the [00:03:00] breakdown is. There's online sites like charity watch, where you can actually type in the name of the charity and figure out what percentage of the money that's given goes to that charity and go, what a percentage goes to administrative costs and this sort of thing.

[00:03:17] So there's a way to do that. You also need to recognize that you want to search around and find charities that give you. And give to causes that you're caring about and that are important to you. But then actually when you find a charity that you think is a good one search for things like highly rated charity search for things like fraud or review or complaint or fraud or scam with the name of that charity.

[00:03:46] Now, just because you may find some people that are upset with it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad organization, but it does let you know that maybe. Dig a little deeper check out the charities website and their publications, their [00:04:00] paperwork, what they put out about it. See and ask them about what their mission is, what programs they have.

[00:04:07] And if you can't find good detailed information, or if they tend to hide that information, it's probably not a great organization to give to some of the organizations I mentioned charity watch earlier. There's other. One's called charity navigator. One is through the better business bureau. It's called the BBB wise giving Alliance.

[00:04:29] There's charity watch that I mentioned earlier, and there's a program called Candice. These are all organizations that research charities now that you won't find every single charity available to you in there. And again, just because the charity isn't listed in there doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad charity to give to, but it does again, give you a heads up that maybe you want to be a little bit more careful and do a little bit more due diligence before you give to them, find out if the charity and the fundraiser or the [00:05:00] event or whatever it is you want to give to is registered with the state.

[00:05:04] As a registered charity, because oftentimes if it isn't registered again, it may be something that is under the table and is actually a scam check. And see if they provide tax exempt notification for the charity. When you give to them, do they give you a tax exempt letter on that donation? Whether it's a tax deductible, rather not tax exempt letter, check to see that and see if they're a tax exempt organization that is able to give tax deductible.

[00:05:35] When you give money to the charity again, if the charity isn't, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad one, but it means that it's something that you want to check a little bit more into, make sure that if you get a phone call about a chair, You get details from them. What's the charities name, what's their web address?

[00:05:55] What's their mailing address? Where are they located? That sort of thing. Do [00:06:00] some research because sometimes a scammer will try to use a name very close to the name of a legit charity, because they know that you've probably heard of it. Ask about how much of the donation will go directly to the program that you're trying to help.

[00:06:13] Ask about what they're doing. Is it really a charity or is it something else? Find out more about what's going on? The FTC, the federal trade commission actually has an article if you search for it called before giving to charity. And that will actually give you a lot of information about the rules that charities follow, what to do.

[00:06:34] If you actually did give to a false charity, that kind of thing, it actually gives you some guidance on how to go about. So the truth is though you can also make it really easy to give to those charities. Once you found a charity that you want to check out and see if the charity has an Amazon smile account, this is a way you can go to smile, amazon.com.

[00:06:57] You can register for your [00:07:00] charity on there and everything that you see. On Amazon through that site gives money to the charity without actually caused costing you any additional money. There's other sites like ultra Risto. This is a Chrome extension that actually, when you make a purchase at certain online stores, it gives up a purse, a portion of that to charities of your choosing.

[00:07:24] Benefit is again, like a cash back service and they actually give you, instead of giving you a certain cash back, they give that cash back over to charities. There's charity miles, where you can actually run an exercise and use that logging to give money to charity. So there's actually ways that you can automate and make it easy.

[00:07:48] To give money to charity without actually making it more complicated. I especially love Amazon smile just cause a lot of us nowadays are getting things from Amazon. And by going [00:08:00] through there, it actually means what you're already doing, gives you money, gives money to over to. Yeah, the truth is before you give money to charity, it's not about making sure that your own financials are perfect.

[00:08:14] It's not about making sure that you have all of the money that you need and these sorts of things. Instead, it's really about recognizing that giving some portion of your income over is again about turning on that idea of having a generous heart. Just like we talked about when we were talking about giving of your time, giving of your money allows you.

[00:08:37] To pass over and recognize that there are others that no matter how good or bad you have it, there are others that are needing your help and being able to pour into them and give service to others. Through monetary donations is one more way that you can practice the idea of gratitude and [00:09:00] generosity and work that into your DNA.

[00:09:02] So just become something that you do. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:07] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of treasure. You can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S 4 4 2 2 2 treasures tips.

[00:09:45] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.[00:10:00] .