Goodwill Car Donation

The Goodwill Car Donation Process

By donating a car to Goodwill, you can do a good deed and help someone in need, so a donation of this nature makes a difference in your community and directly affects your life in many ways even if you may not realize it at first. The proceeds from the sale of your vehicle are used for a variety of programs designed to help the developmentally disabled as well as the unemployed and others in need. Once you complete the necessary steps to sign your vehicle over to this non profit organization, they take care of the sale and all necessary paperwork. Your job is done and you have helped others who are less fortunate and nothing feels better than participating in the goodwill car donation program.

The first step when completing a Goodwill Car Donation is to determine the fair value market of your car. The easiest way to do this is to look up the private party value on Kelly Blue Book because Goodwill is not allowed, by law, to determine the value for you. Once you have this information in hand, contact your local Goodwill because the process will differ from place to place, but the basic steps will be the same. Some may ask you to submit an application through the Internet, wait for a return call and others will ask you to bring the car to them.

Next you will need to prepare your car to be sold at auction so collect all personal belongings from the vehicle and remove your license plates if they are still attached. Complete all portions of the title and sign it before having the car delivered to the appropriate location. You may need to take the car yourself or they may send a towing company after it and now your work is complete. Once the car has been auctioned off, Goodwill will send you a tax receipt which must be done within 30 days of the sale of the vehicle.

Save this receipt as you will be able to mark the donation on your taxes if you itemize. As the Goodwill car donation program is part of an IRS approved non profit organization, the donation is 100 percent tax deductible. To figure out your tax savings, take the value of the donated car and multiply it by your tax rate. You may be surprised at the amount you are able to take off of your taxes and one more thing please do not forget to cancel your registration and insurance to complete this process.