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" Americans are the most generous people on earth. So even if 2.1 percent of your household&amp;#039;s income (an average of $1,075 from each generous home) doesn&amp;#039;t seem like much, know that it&amp;#039;s more than what&amp;#039;s given anywhere else. The point of charity, however, is not only to give but to give smartly. I believe people tend to give more when they have control over how that money is used. Best solution: donor-advised funds. Here&amp;#039;s how it works: You contribute money to a trust that you control but that&amp;#039;s earmarked for charity. You don&amp;#039;t have to select the recipient(s) until you&amp;#039;re ready to give the dough away; there&amp;#039;s no time limit, and you can pick the 501(c)(3) qualified charity of your choosing. Meantime, you decide what the trust will invest in as you grow it. And the best part is, as soon as you make a contribution, you qualify for the federal income-tax deduction for charitable gifts.  Rich folks have done this for ages, but it only recently became practical for regular people when Fidelity, Schwab, and others opened funds that handle the record-keeping end. Fidelity&amp;#039;s Charitable Gift Fund, for example, requires an initial deposit of only ten large and subsequent deposits of just $1,000. And since you can use appreciated securities toward that deposit, you can even escape capital-gains tax. Let&amp;#039;s say you&amp;#039;re ready to realize gains on a stock that&amp;#039;s doubled from $5,000 to $10,000 in less than a year. You&amp;#039;ll owe about $1,400 in short-term capital-gains tax before you even make your donation, and once you send it, that money&amp;#039;s history. With a donor-advised fund, you can place the stock into the fund, save the $1,400, grab another tax break for your generosity (roughly your tax bracket times the given amount), and still control how the shares and cash are used until you give the dough away. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/a290/esq1100-nov-betterman2-rev-2-6/>