Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Donating Cars To Charity

By Mark Walters

The practice of donating cars to charities has been around for a while now but, unfortunately, many people are still unaware of how the process works and what the benefits of it are.

Making a car donation is both a kind and a rewarding thing to do. Your car may seem like one that is practically worthless but, as long as it is roadworthy, or just needs a little work to make it so, it can be of great benefit to other people if it is donated to charity.

What exactly happens to your car when you donate it to charity is somewhat dependent on the state that your car is in and the way that the charitable organization has dealt with car donations in the past.

Auctioning off the car and investing the profits into the development of their programs is one option. This is generally the preferred way of dealing with donated cars as charities always need more hard cash. Auction houses generally waive their fees for donated cars, and buyers are willing to pay a little extra, and so the final amount that goes to charity would be significantly more than they would get if you auctioned off the car yourself and just gave the money to a charity.

Other charities will use the cars donated to them for their members to perform charitable work, such as taking old or disabled members of the community out. Although the car may be old and not in pristine condition, as long as it runs and can get a person from point A to point B without any problems, it can provide a lifeline to someone who has a serious mobility issue.

The third option, which is generally only used if the car is beyond repair, is to pass it onto a car recycling scheme. This involves stripping a car of its valuable parts, and then selling them off, and selling the remaining shell of the car to a junkyard. A fair amount of money can be made from doing this, and you can be sure that, as it is a charitable organization involved, all the buyers will be as generous as possible.

A charity will normally tell you what they plan to do with your car and, most importantly, how exactly your donation will be used. If, for one reason or another, you are not happy or enthusiastic about their plans, you can just tell them so and contact a different charity instead. It is your car, so feel free to spend some time making sure it goes to the place where you feel it will be best put to use.

So, to summarize, the benefits of donating a car, for all parties involved, can be substantial and, rather than receiving a small amount of dollars for scrapping an old car, or using it as part of a part exchange deal for a new car, you could really change someone's life by taking the time to donate a car to charity. - 22871

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