As 2022 comes to a close, taxpayers are beginning to calculate their deductions and expenses for the current year. Companies and individuals are combing through their digital and physical files to locate the elusive tax receipts for the charitable donations they made during the year in order to submit them to the tax authorities. Tracking them down can be difficult, especially in cases where the beneficiary may have forgotten to issue a receipt.
Some choose to increase their charitable donations in December to maximize their deductions before the end of the year.
Others, who may want to donate a large sum of money, may face a different problem – where to send their donations before year’s end. There are thousands of worthy charities in Israel, and as the year comes to a close, such individuals may have difficulty deciding to which charity to give, in time for the year-end tax deduction.
Is there a better way to manage charitable donations and maintain a digital record of one’s contributions in one place with easy accessibility? Is it possible to make a sizable charitable donation before the end of the year, receive the year-end deduction, yet still have time to disburse the funds over time, in a thought-out, strategic manner?
The solution to this charity riddle is a five-letter word – JGive. “JGive is the way to give tzedakah [charity] today,” declares Philip Stein, founder and head of Philip Stein & Associates, the largest US CPA firm in Israel. Stein learned about JGive several years ago and uses it for his private charitable donations, as well as for the company’s corporate contributions. He praises the innovative platform’s ease of use, the ability to generate receipts immediately, and its record-keeping of charitable donations made throughout the year.
“We all receive envelopes from charitable organizations, but instead of sitting down and writing a check, I go online and fill it out on the site. The organizations to which I generally give are online with JGive.” More than 1,500 officially recognized charitable organizations are listed on JGive’s site.
“It is better for the organizations as well, as they don’t have to deal with checks and envelopes,” he points out. Stein can keep track of his donations throughout the year in his personal area on the JGive platform, and all his charitable receipts are located there for easy access. All charitable donations made through JGive’s platform can be funded using a variety of payment methods, including Bit, Apple Pay, wire or bank transfer, or checks.
Stein adds that his firm uses JGive Platinum, a donor-advised fund (DAF), to make corporate donations, allowing the firm to keep track of receipts, thereby giving it time to decide how to allocate funds for charity.
David Jacobi, the firm’s controller, explains: “We give 1% of our company’s revenue to charity. In the past, we would decide to whom we wanted to give it and then make the donation. Our bookkeepers would go running around looking for receipts. It was a time-consuming process and was not smooth and efficient.”
Once the firm found JGive, says Jacobi, “the difference was like night and day.”
Since JGive is a nonprofit organization, depositing into the JGive Platinum donor-advised fund produces an immediate tax-deductible receipt for the entire amount, even before the donor allocates where the money will be sent.
Explains Jacobi, “We have a fund where we deposit our money. We then get a receipt from JGive, and the money sits there until we decide to pass it on to whatever organizations we want.”
Like in other DAFs, one can also choose to invest the funds in JGive Platinum’s designated investment tracks and leave the money for a longer time and thus maximize your impact as you watch the funds grow.
‘The donation process was time-consuming and ineficient. Once we found JGive, the difference was like night and day
In the past, the firm had to decide where to donate the funds by the end of the calendar year. Now, since it receives a receipt immediately by depositing the funds into the JGive Platinum donor-advised fund, it can delay the disbursement of charitable donations until it has decided where to donate, thereby providing greater flexibility for strategic grants. The end-of-the-year calendar deadline no longer applies.
“I can make a large donation at the end of December, and the money is there,” says Jacobi. “We can divide it up, whenever we want, to whomever we want. We already have the charitable receipts. It makes the whole system much more organized and simpler. We will never go back to how it was beforehand,” he says.
Stein recommends JGive’s Platinum donor-advised fund for certain clients, particularly hi-tech clients who have made a profitable exit. “They generally do not have much experience with charity,” Stein says, “and if, for example, they make an exit in October, they would have to make a charitable donation by December 31 in order to save on their taxes. This puts a lot of pressure on them. If they didn’t do their due diligence about to whom they want to donate the money, they can open a donor-advised fund through JGive. They donate what they want, receive the deduction, and the money can sit, and they give it without any pressure.”
JGive maintains two types of donor-advised funds. The base version requires no minimum deposit, while the Platinum version offers certain VIP services and requires a minimum investment of NIS 50,000.
“For US citizens who live in Israel with Israeli-sourced income,” says Stein, “it is better to give to an Israeli charity than an American charity because you will get a 35% credit from the Israeli tax authorities and also deduct on your US tax returns. If you are giving it through JGive’s donor-advised fund, you will get both the tax benefits, and you will not have the pressure to give money to one or two organizations immediately.”
JGive Platinum also provides the option to donate from American-sourced income and receive a recognized American tax receipt.
Michael and Karine Bloch made aliyah from Switzerland 12 years ago and live in Ra’anana. Michael worked as a consultant with McKinsey for more than 20 years in Switzerland, France and Israel before becoming involved in the world of nonprofit organizations, where he now spends most of his time.
“My decision-making process for charities has become more refined over the years,” he says. “I take a businesslike approach to fund effective and efficient organizations that do good.”
Bloch and his wife are particularly interested in funding Torah education, healthcare, and helping the disadvantaged find employment.
“Karine loves the idea of deciding together how much we give overall and to what themes,” says Michael, “and then I can do the research to allocate to specific nonprofits.”
As time passed, the Blochs had more funds available for charity, and managing donations became more difficult. “I have about 20 charities on my list today, and every year I had to run after them to know where to send the money and to get the receipts. It became a headache.”
When donor-advised funds became available in Israel, Michael and Karine opened an account with JGive. Michael says that donor-advised funds offer several advantages over the previous methods of charitable giving.
“Using a donor-advised fund streamlines the administrative process,” he explains. “Since the money is directly deposited to the fund, there is no need to wire the money to the specific charity immediately or contact the charity to get a receipt. When you allocate the money through the DAF, you get one receipt from the fund directly. The act of giving becomes much easier.”
He adds that there is a psychological benefit to allocating funds through a donor-advised fund. “By the time you move the money to your DAF account, it is already not yours, and the act of giving becomes a lot easier. At that point, the money is not really yours, so you are just allocating money from one pocket to the other.”An additional advantage of JGive’s donor-advised fund, he notes, is that the platform, which lists thousands of eligible charities that work within its framework, can help donors discover other potentially interesting charitable organizations.
Summarizing his experience with JGive, Michael says, “As I used it, I realized how smooth, easy and user-friendly the process was becoming.”
Bloch says that today’s tech-aware generation is looking for immediacy and ease of use, which make donor-advised funds well suited for people who crave simplicity, technology and immediate feedback.
From the point of view of charitable organizations – Bloch serves as a treasurer for a charity – he says that he appreciates the convenience of the DAF fund. “Giving through a donor-advised fund also creates efficiencies for the nonprofit organization. The donor-advised fund, through the digitizing of the process, makes the whole thing seamless for the nonprofit as well. The charitable organization gets the money in its account, and there is nothing else to do. The DAF issues a receipt on behalf of the nonprofit, and everything becomes streamlined and low-cost,
helping the nonprofit focus on doing good instead of managing papers and receipts.“Beyond the social responsibility of those who have toward those who do not,” says Michael, “there is also an element of personal satisfaction. It is hugely rewarding, personally and emotionally, to be helping others. Nonprofit organizations are getting better at keeping their donors informed about the good they do with the money. It is gratifying when you look back and see how much you’ve been able to help.”
For more information about JGive, please click here.
This article was written in cooperation with JGive.