Effective Giving

Effective giving requires informed choices, the confidence that your gift will make a difference and the assurance that you are efficiently using your money and time.

"It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place."
Andrew Carnegie, American philanthropist

While there are many types of giving, it always involves time, talent or treasure. Giving "treasure" means giving money or items that have significant monetary value.

In contrast to cash donations that are often a one-off contribution, or coins that you drop into a tin, effective giving:

• is sustainable and programmed
• follows specific principles
• applies carefully thought out contribution guidelines

Some key guidelines for effective giving

Give responsibly and knowledgeably. Understand the causes, projects or institutions you are supporting. Even if you do not have time to engage directly with the individuals or the organisations, you should do your own research, read evaluation reports and modify your giving as appropriate.

Understand the impact of your giving. Be confident that you are achieving your aims. What results do you seek? What positive changes are you creating for the recipients of your giving?

Know the recipients. You may wish to seek out organisations that have solid corporate governance and management, a sound reputation, good civic benefits and low costs of delivery.

Seek advice. Take advantage of the variety of experienced, quality advice that is available for both your overall giving program and individual investments. For example, there are qualified professional advisers as well as informal sources such as family, friends and colleagues.

Establish a process. The steps you could follow are to:

1. set your objectives
2. develop a giving plan
3. ensure tax efficiency and compliance
4. select and implement an investment plan
5. monitor and evaluate impacts

We emphasise that there is no "right" strategy or "right" way . It is a question of what matters to you, who you want to involve and how you want to organise your decision-making process. You must choose your own path to effective giving.