Presentation: 4 tips for making smart donations

To make it easier for you to prepare meeting materials, we’ve developed these slides on how to help a client who wants to donate to charity. The presentation is in a Word file to make it simpler to customize the content to your client’s needs.

Enjoy, and we hope this offering helps enhance your client meetings.

SLIDE 1

4 tips for making smart donations

SLIDE 2

CRA regulates more than 86,000 registered charities in Canada, so it can hard to choose which ones to support. However, you’ll feel more secure about your donations and how they’ll be used if you ensure you’ve made the right choices.

If you’re considering making a donation, take the following four steps first.

SLIDE 3

#1: Confirm organizations are Canadian-registered.

You should do this for two reasons:

• First, registered charities are required to devote their resources to charitable activities and this is monitored by CRA; and

• Second, only charities registered with the CRA can issue donation receipts for tax purposes.

SLIDE 4

To check a charity’s registration status, call the CRA at 1-800-267-2384 or check the agency’s online listings.

SLIDE 5

#2: Get to know the charity.

The best way to get to know a charity is to volunteer. But, you can also visit the charity’s website to learn more about its activities and how it’s managed.

And, you can review the organization’s information returns on the CRA’s Charity Quick View.

SLIDE 6

Your main goal should be to understand the charity’s financial status and activities.