A Plan
Nothing in particular for me Umbran. I realize that I have only so much time and so much money. So years and years ago I developed a Charity and Philanthropy Plan.
It is similar to my Investment Plan, but in reverse.
I donate to certain categories of charity, such as church, medical, missions, poor children, animal, local, national, international, etc. Just as I invest in certain general categories of enterprises, stocks, real estate, start-ups, etc. My charity categories determine my general approaches or applications.
My categories decide what what general problems I am seeking to fix or what general types of help I get involved in (monetarily). then I research certain specific charities and how they do, etc. I do not engage in silly and impractical ideas like every charity must give 100% of it’s operating budget to the actual charitable work because I’ve run businesses and my wife works for a non-profit. I know way too much about business and understand that such enterprises are both businesses and charities. Without being run like a business the charity will likely fail. But I do look at how effective they are, and how much of their income goes to their work versus how much to overhead and administrative costs and executive salaries. I have criteria that must be met. I look at charitable operations as I would a prospectus or business plan.
Then when I’m satisfied I donate. I do so on a regular basis as a percentage of income just as I would donate a certain amount of income automatically to both savings and my investment portfolio. That way it’s done and I don’t have to screw with it anymore than I do with my long range portfolio or savings, except that every six months to a year I do a review to see if the charity is still functioning well and operating cleanly. If so I let it sit, if not, I pull and redirect.
A couple of times, due to the economy or personal business and financial situations I’ve had to mostly pull our charity ops temporarily, but with the Plan I always pick up where I left off, no problem.
If something unforeseen comes up like a big disaster or a local event then I’ll make one time donations or actions to do what I can to solve that problem. For instance, once at our church a church member suffered a house fire and their family lost everything. So my family went out and bought a new wardrobe for the young daughter who happened to be about the same age as our daughter. That’s how I handle one time emergencies, otherwise I stick to my Plan. Every few years I might change percentages to certain categories, add or subtract categories, or pull or add specific charities. As our income increases the share that goes to charity increases proportionately. Just as it does with investment or business.
I’m too old and too busy to do much direct charity myself, that is I don’t generally do charity work (I donate instead), except occasionally for church or I might do something pro bono for someone I know in need, that I think needs the help, or that I want to help (for whatever reason).
As for philanthropy I do take a personal involvement in that kind of thing - library support, etc. And when I become wealthy enough I’ll establish a few philanthropic ventures of my own, build a library, help with a hospital, establish a college trust, etc.
But overall for me it is a well defined and automatically executed Plan.
A good plan saves a helluvah lotta work if you ask me.
