Determine Your Philanthropic Budget

It is a personal decision to determine how much to give to your focus areas compared to reserving resources for you and your family’s present and future needs. We want to focus on proactive giving in the focus areas you identified in the Find Your Focus Module. We want to cover some of the following categories.

PROACTIVE GIVING, which includes contributions to organizations working on your selected issues
REACTIVE GIVING, which includes contributions to personal requests from family and friends to support their selected issue areas
EMERGENCY GIVING, which includes contributions to disaster and emergency relief funds, or dire situations that emerge from unexpected policy changes

Additionally, there are two approaches you can take to arrive at your total philanthropy budget: you can use your previous contributions to inform your future giving related to the values and issues you identified in the Find Your Focus Module. Alternately, you may prefer to start with a clean slate to determine how much to give. Regardless of the approach you choose, you may want to discuss your overall financial plan with your advisor before determining your final philanthropy budget and giving cycles.

Step 1 of 8

How much do you wish to allocate to your philanthropy in the next year? Over the next three years? The next five to seven years? The next decade or more?