5 Tips to Hiring Your Best Car Donation Fundraiser

PR Log (Press Release) – Oct 23, 2008 – Car donations can provide a big part of a charity’s fundraising income, but running a vehicle donation campaign is well out of the realm of expertise for most non-profit executives. Those who run charities are experts in their own fields, some in medical research, some in education, and many others in social and educational services.
The field of fundraising through vehicle donations is highly specialized, says Tim Finnigan, owner of Charity Development, LLC Fundraising Consultantshttp://www.charitydevelopment.com/index.html, and it’s one that can be justifiably confusing to executives running not-for-profit organizations. He works with charities, helping them raise money through car donations. He’s a natural educator, too, teaching his clients about the world of car donation fundraising.
“The choice you make in a car donation fundraiser is one of the first, and it is certainly one of the most important decisions,” he says, for any charity getting into vehicle donations.  You are giving your fundraiser your good name to use, and duties of care need to apply here.
Finnigan’s Five Tips
1. Interview the fundraiser. Get a resume, and don’t be shy about asking questions. Just as you are an expert in your field, he’s an expert in his. He should be able to answer any question about his field. Ask him to run you through his version of the car donation process.
Get a sense of his people skills: his relationships within the auto industry affect your donation returns. Ask him about recent changes to the tax laws and about regulations covering charity car donation documentation. He should have ready answers to all your questions. After all, you are hiring him to be your expert.
2. Make sure donated vehicles are sold through a variety of channels. “This is key,” says Finnigan. Does the fundraiser in question sell all donated vehicles through auctions or straight to a junkyard?  If so, if you hired him, you’d be missing out on possible retail revenue.  Some vehicles can bring in much more than their immediately obvious value. On his blog http://www.charitydevelopment.com/blog/, Finnigan tells the story of one Ford van that he pulled out of a wholesale auction where it was about to sell for what appeared to be its value. It was worth thousands more.  
The key to making sure you get the best return on car donations is to choose a fundraising professional who screens each and every donated vehicle and then chooses the best sales channel for it.
3. Get past the percentages and add up the numbers. What a charity hears when they talk to car donation fundraisers is percentages. “Some car donation fundraising companies say they give 50 percent, or even 100 percent, to the charities, but the percentage tells you nothing,” says Finnigan. That percentage is “net”. It kicks in after all of the expenses, fees, even in many cases, overhead, are deducted, and therefore, the percentage is meaningless. It’s not transparent.
Finnigan advertises that he charges just 10 percent and is upfront on exactly what that means. It’s 10 percent of gross sales price, he says. If a car brings in $1,000, the charity gets $900, and he gets $100. If the car brings in $100, he gets $10. The 10 percent applies to the general run of vehicles.
4. Read and understand the contract. The charity / agent relationship that is most often set up with a fundraiser requires a full understanding of regulations. Finnigan advises clients to download a copy of the IRS brochure, “A Charity’s Guide to Car Donations”http://www.charitydevelopment.com/resources.html, as a place to begin its research. Understanding the contract is essential. “The fundraiser should get a small piece of the pie, and your charity should receive the lion’s share,” he says.
5. Get references. The best way to discover how a car donation fundraiser operates is by talking to his other clients. “This applies to any consultant you may hire,” Finnigan says, “and most clients will take a phone call from someone researching a consultant.” Hiring a fundraising consultant is not that different from hiring any member of the team. References need to be checked out.
The choice you make in deciding on a car donation fundraiser determines what your charity will receive through the vehicles donated by supporters of your cause. Finnigan’s final word is, “Do your due diligence now for greater future rewards for your charity.”