Charitable Giving

Brent O’Mara supports Omaha causes including PlaySmart, Angels Among Us, Susan G. Komen, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. That is a plain fact, stated once; the entries in this subject are about giving itself, the rules that govern a deductible gift and the vehicles through which Americans give.

The rules begin with who may receive. The Internal Revenue Service deducts gifts only to qualified organizations, never to individuals, and only for taxpayers who itemize, with a new allowance from tax year 2026 letting those who do not itemize deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts, or $2,000 on a joint return; any single gift of $250 or more needs a contemporaneous written acknowledgment, and noncash gifts above $5,000 need a qualified appraisal.¹ The New York Times walked through the same pitfalls from the giver’s side, warning that a canceled check is no substitute for a receipt and that used goods count only at what the charity can sell them for.⁴

The vehicles have multiplied. Candid lays out three paths for a donor with money to give: give it directly, start a private foundation that must pay out 5 percent of its assets each year and carry its own governance, or open a donor advised fund at a community foundation or a financial institution and recommend grants from it over time; grants from such funds reached an estimated $45.74 billion in 2021, up 28.2 percent on the year before.⁶ The Wall Street Journal reported that Americans poured money into those funds late in 2017 to lock in deductions before a new tax law made giving less advantageous for many households.⁵ National Philanthropic Trust published the annual report on the field for nineteen years before a research collaborative took it over in 2025.² Who gives is another question entirely: a Chronicle of Philanthropy study reported by NPR found that households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 gave 7.6 percent of their discretionary income, about twice the share given by those earning $200,000 or more, and that religious giving made up the bulk of the total.³ Whether a deduction, a fund or a foundation fits a given household turns on personal circumstances and is a question for qualified professionals in tax, law and finance.

The entries in this subject are The Charitable Deduction, Donor Advised Funds, Qualified Charitable Distributions, Gifts of Appreciated Assets, Charitable Remainder Trusts, Private Foundations, How Americans Give and Family Philanthropy.