For many of our donors, November marks a time to consider making end-of-year donations. Depending on their charitable experiences over the last twelve months, they may also start thinking about where they’d prefer their funds to go next year.
If you’re thinking about preparing a year-end donation, or considering charitable giving for 2023, this month’s article shares some administrative suggestions to help your gifts go further.
Credit card donations and charitable impact:
From a consumer perspective, points, rebates, delayed, and automatic payments are enticing reasons to pay with credit cards, but service charges can become expensive for organizations who accept them.
Donors may not realize that extra costs are absorbed by charities when gifts are made by credit card. In our Hospital Foundation’s case, the added cost to our charity for donations made via credit card hovers near 3.6 per cent.
Our team at CCHF manages costs carefully with the goal of directing as many funds as possible to medical equipment. While we continue to gratefully accept credit card payments, there are options to help reduce our expenses:
- Monthly donors have the option to have funds transferred automatically from their bank account instead of via credit card.
- Fundraising event sponsors are encouraged to pay by cheque or by EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).
- Gifts can be made via cheque.
- Online donations to cornwallhospitalfoundation.ca can be made directly from a bank account instead of a credit card.
- CCHF can accept payments by debit card for individuals who visit our office at CCH, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Deadline for tax receipts within the 2022 tax year:
Registered charities like CCHF must issue receipts in compliance with the Canadian Income Tax Act and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This information may sound boring, but it’s an essential truth. If an organization doesn’t follow proper receipting protocols, their charitable status may be revoked.
We know that charitable receipts are an important part of giving. The following deadlines will ensure our donors receive tax receipts marked for the 2022 tax year:
- If donating online, CCHF must receive funds via cornwallhospitalfoundation.ca before December 31st at 11:59 PM.
- If donating by mail, the envelope must be postmarked by Canada Post no later than December 31st. If a cheque is marked for December, but the mailing envelope is postmarked in January, a donation will not comply with the 2022 receipting year. Our team carefully documents postmarked envelopes when opening donations in January after the Christmas break.
- The deadline for in-person donations at our office is Friday, December 23, by 3 p.m.
- Gifts of stock or mutual fund transfers must be processed by December 15th.
If you have any questions about alternatives to credit card donations, or about managing deadlines from a year-end taxation perspective, please feel free to call our office at 613-930-4508.
