The easiest car donation starts by simply contacting us
When you’re thinking about donating your car, an easy and convenient process is important to you – after all, likely a good reason you’re considering donation is that you need to get rid of this car quickly without spending too much time on it.
Good news for you:
We can tell you the easiest way to donate a car in under 2 minutes and then you can get right to it.
What makes donating so simple?
- You just have to give them your car’s info either by phone (1.877.527.7454) or online form and they will have a local towing company reach out to you to schedule a pickup, which will usually happen in the next day or two (sometimes even faster, if you are on a tight timeline).
- You don’t have to be present for pickup; you can just leave the key and title in the glove compartment.
- You’ll get a tax-deductible receipt and vacation voucher emailed to you.
Now, for some more details:
1. Choose a charity that accepts car donations
We’d suggest Kars4Kids, especially if ease is a big factor for you.
You can take a couple of minutes to assess the charity you are considering by visiting their website and looking out for things like:
- Is this a legitimate registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization?
- Are they experienced? The longer they’ve been accepting car donations and the more donors they have, the easier the process will be for you.
2. Submit your car's info
Just some basic stuff like year, make and model and where it is located.
You can do this by phone if you like the idea of speaking to a real live person or online if talking on the phone is not your thing.
This is essentially all that is needed from you to donate – a charity like Kars4Kids will take over from here and get the job done.
And all it takes is 2 minutes!
3. Schedule pickup
With Kars4Kids, this will happen immediately after you contact us, often even during the initial phone call.
If you donate online, a local towing company will reach out to you within a few hours to schedule.
Some charities may allow you to drop off your car, if you prefer that or want to save them the expense of towing your car.
4. Your car gets picked up
Some donors like to be there for pickup but it’s not necessary.
It may be a nostalgic moment for you, watching your old car move on to the next step in its journey.
You’ll receive a temporary receipt which is basically just a confirmation that the car has been picked up by the charity.
5. Transfer ownership
Kars4Kids can make it a paperless process and will really take care of all the work for you.
You can even opt to communicate via text if that is easier for you.
To learn more about transferring your ownership, visit our title transfer page and select your state from the dropdown.
6. Tax deduction and vacation
Our tax-deductible receipt and vacation voucher will be emailed to you.
7. And you are done! Wasn't that easy?
For their part, the charity will either use your car for their charity programs or, more likely, sell it to use the proceeds to fund their charity work.
Some car donation programs you’ll come across are not actually charities at all – they are just donation processing companies that handle all the technical aspects of donating (marketing the service, handling the pickup and sale of the vehicles, etc).
Many of these take a large cut of the profit and only give a small percentage to the charities they claim your donation is supporting.
By contrast, Kars4Kids is one of the few nonprofits that processes car donations in house – meaning, they have their own call center and operations team and they don’t hire a marketing/advertising agency.
By eliminating third-party resources, Kars4Kids can ensure that the maximum amount of the donations goes directly to charity programs.
Some think that car donation is a costly way to give to charity:
After all, the charity needs to incur the expense of picking up and monetizing the vehicle in order to benefit from the donation.
What that way of thinking doesn’t take into account is that donors who give their cars to charity would likely not be giving a cash donation of that value, nor would they go through the trouble of selling the car themselves only to donate the full proceeds to charity.
A big motivation behind the donation is the very fact that it provides an easy way to dispose of a car that is no longer needed, bypassing the hassle of selling it!
Charities that are in the position to take on the expense of marketing, towing and selling cars are able to open up an entirely new revenue stream that otherwise wouldn’t be going to the charitable sector at all.
