Philanthropy can change the lives of many grieving people around the world. Each of us is surrounded by people less privileged than us. These people are unable to lead a decent life due to lack of basic facilities to support themselves and their families. They can be born in poverty or they can become homeless and poor due to natural disasters. Natural disasters make an already dire situation even more pathetic. These natural disasters that leave millions of people homeless every year in one part of the world or another make us look beyond donating to local charities as well. A small contribution from the most privileged population can help rebuild someone’s life, somewhere.

Not sure where and to whom you want to donate? In theory, it doesn’t really matter who you help in the end because the desired result should be to help improve someone’s life and this is achieved through your donation. Yet each of us tends to work for a cause that affects us far more than anything else: underprivileged children, neglected elderly, people suffering from cancer, AIDS or some other malignancy, or people with disabilities, either private population physically, mentally or economically. However, in times of natural disasters, charitable donations, in cash or in kind, must be made to the affected population without considering any other criteria or discrimination. For the corporate donations that we make part of our daily lives, we can choose which organizations we want to sponsor.

It is easy to locate the institutions that have really helped rebuild and improve the standard of living of the disadvantaged populations around us. Some of them may work in your community, around you. In the rare opportunity of not being able to find one in your neighborhood, you will be able to get enough information from relevant sources. So start donating today and give someone the opportunity to live a dignified life through your charitable work.

Tax benefits depend on the amount of the donation and the status of the chosen charity. However, this is because the IRS has revised tax breaks to filter out those who just want to reduce their taxes. The IRS expects revenue collection to increase marginally through this review.

Whether or not a donation to charities is part of an individual or corporate strategy has raised many issues of “purity” of intent against the tax benefits that could be gained from doing so. But in the end, it’s great to have your cake and eat it too.