Keeping Up With Your Pledge
- Rebecca Herbst
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
Congrats on taking The Pledge! And welcome to the club!
One of the best ways to keep up with this commitment is to make it as easy as possible for you to donate. I swear, I spend more time searching for my keys everyday than I do coming up with a donation strategy.
Here are four ideas to keep your donating as smooth as possible.
1. Identify your charities upfront
Mark your calendar once or twice a year and spend some time to identify the charities that can do the most good. This way you'll have done the upfront work and won't feel burdened with having to make this decision over and over again.
You may already have a firm idea of where you want to give, but if you’re starting from scratch or looking to rethink your donation strategy. I recommend starting with this article ​"How to find an effective charity​" from Giving What We Can.
2. Set your schedule for giving
In general, we recommend you set up recurring donations — whether that be bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly. This helps build the habit and gets funds to charities when they need them most. Of course, there are times when a different approach makes sense, like for tax planning or when making a large, one-time donation to a specific cause or project.
We recommend setting a proactive strategy for your giving, but it's more than fine to leave some space for reactive giving. For example, pledge-taker Ben allocates 90% of his donation budget to planned and expected donations on a monthly basis, but makes sure to leave some space if an interesting opportunity to give arises, like a match opportunity comes up or a if he wants to support a friend's charity.
3. Decide what you want to donate
We're talking about what you are materially going to donate: cash? stocks? grants from your donor-advised fund (DAF)? Make sure to check that your charities accept the type of asset you want to donate.
For those in the U.S., we recommend downloading our Giving Guide to explore all your giving options.
🤲 Download the FREE Giving Guide. 🤲
💡 Here's hot tip from pledge-taker Joe:
He donates appreciated stock directly to charity. This allows him to avoid paying capital gains tax on that growth. He then "replenishes" his portfolio and buys the same (or similar) stock again. That way, he resets his cost basis at today’s market price—meaning if the stock keeps growing, he’ll owe less in capital gains tax when he sells it in the future. It’s a smart way to give generously!
4. Use trusted tools to track your impact
Here's a list of resources:
You can track your donations via your ​pledge dashboard​ powered by Giving What We Can. Updating your donations here also helps us track our impact as a wider community.
Use a good ole spreadsheet. My husband and I built charitable giving into our wider finance spreadsheet. This way we can see our donations right alongside other important data points like annual capital gains/losses, expected taxes, and more.
Use a 3rd party platform like ​every.org​ to record your giving history and to create a single tax receipt.
Track your donations using your existing personal finances software like You Need a Budget or Monarch Money.
Have unanswered questions still? Reach out!
Disclaimer:
The information contained in the Yield & Spread website, course materials and all other related content is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for obtaining accounting, tax, or financial advice, and may not be suitable for every individual. Yield & Spread is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or a broker/dealer.