5 Tips for Year-End Charitable Giving
Supporting charitable organizations is important, but with today’s high level of financial stress and economic uncertainty, charities are increasingly relying on donor support. As it turns out, the latter part of each calendar year is one of the most important times for charitable fundraising. It’s been estimated that more than 30% of all donations are made during the month of December.1 There’s nothing like a hard deadline to motivate people, and the end of the tax year often provides a good nudge to make a donation!
With that in mind, here are five tips and strategies when considering your year-end charitable giving.
1. Do you own stocks that have appreciated in value?
Share some of that wealth with your favorite charity while potentially managing risk within your portfolio. If you have one or two stocks that have done especially well over the years, they may now represent a larger proportion of your portfolio than is prudent. Selling these stocks to help rebalance your portfolio to preferred allocations and target risk profile might be a good strategy, but it could also entail a significant capital gains tax. However, gifting some shares to charity may help you avoid the tax while also reducing the holding level of particular stocks to something more reasonable—plus, you get the added benefit of a tax deduction.
2. Are you retiring soon?
Consider using a donor-advised fund (DAF) to pre-fund your future charitable gifts before you stop working and, presumably, your taxable income declines. A DAF is like a charitable savings account that you contribute to now in an effort to maximize the tax advantage. You can then make charitable gifts from the fund for years into the future. This strategy allows you to offset your current taxable income prior to retiring, at which time you may have less taxable income and be in a lower tax bracket. This can also be a useful way to offset a spike in your taxable income in a given tax year if you’ve had a business or residence sale, a bonus payment, an exercise of stock options or a Roth IRA conversion.
3. Have you reached age 70½?
U.S. federal tax law stipulates that you must take required minimum distributions (RMDs) from your retirement account, which flows through your tax return as ordinary income. However, tax law changes have made permanent the ability to gift up to $108,000 (which is the limit in 2025) from your IRA to charity, including the amount needed to satisfy the RMD, as long as you are at least 70½ years of age. This is called a qualified charitable distribution (QCD). Doing so allows you to exclude the distribution from your income on your federal tax return. If you’re married and both of you are at least 70½ years old, each spouse may exclude up to $108,000 (in 2025) from their gross income.2 Depending on your situation, the QCD may help preserve some of your deductions (which otherwise are subject to phase-out rules), reduce income-based Medicare premiums or limit the impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
4. Want help budgeting for your charitable giving?
Many of us would like to give more but struggle to fit it into our budget—especially after the flurry of holiday spending toward the end of the year. Check to see if your favorite charity has a monthly giving program. This can allow you to spread out your financial gift over the course of the year, and maybe even enable you to give more as a result. These programs are generally set up as an autopay from your credit card or checking account, making it easy to do and giving you the good feeling throughout the year that comes from being charitable!
5. Don’t procrastinate much longer
Some of these strategies can take time to plan out and process, so don’t leave it too long. You don’t want to wait until the end of December, only to find that you’ve run out of time.
There are numerous variables and rules to consider when determining what might be the best method for you when making charitable gifts. They are largely beyond the scope of this article, so check with your Corient Wealth Advisor and tax accountant to discuss the pros and cons of these giving strategies, in order to decide which solutions and approaches are best for your circumstances and objectives.
1 https://www.charityauctionstoday.com/p/end-of-year-giving-why-its-crucial/
2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcarlson/2025/03/27/plan-your-2025-qcds-and-rmds-now/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Sonneborn
Jim is a Partner, Wealth Advisor in our Morristown, NJ, office. He has over 35 years of experience managing investment portfolios and providing financial advice to individuals, families and charitable organizations in the New York metropolitan region.
As a Wealth Advisor and Co-Chair of legacy firm RegentAtlantic’s Neighborhood Nonprofits Group, Jim works with a wide range of clients and has a particular specialty in philanthropic strategies. For donors, Jim works to construct strategies that align with the client’s philanthropic goals. In the nonprofit sector, Jim focuses on helping organizations strengthen their financial position through endowment management and planned giving consulting. Jim currently serves on the boards of The Rippel Foundation and the Environmental Endowment of NJ.
Jim holds a BA in Business from Western Colorado University and an MBA in Finance from Drexel University, as well as the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification and Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst certifications.
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4845889 - September 2025
