As 2024 comes to a close and you begin thinking about your year-end donations, please consider a gift to the Council. Contributions of any size are welcome and will be used to empower individuals in Wisconsin who look to the Council for services and education.
Giving to the Council can come in many forms and can often come with tax benefits. Making a gift from an individual retirement account (IRA) is becoming more and more popular for those over the age of 70 and a half. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules say that you must withdraw a certain amount from your IRA every year, known as a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD). If you do not need to use your entire RMD for living expenses, consider making a direct gift from your IRA to the Council. You can donate up to $100,000 annually to any public charity, like the Council, entirely tax free. A gift of any size directly from your IRA will have a significant impact on the lives of the people we serve every day.
Barbara Nilsson has been giving to the Council for nearly a decade and switched to making a gift from her IRA this year. Barbara says that she gives to the Council as a way to say thanks for the services we provided to her father when he began losing his vision. “In addition to his in-home vision therapy visits, the Council got my father signed up for the Wisconsin Talking Book and Braille Library,” Barbara says. “He was such an avid reader before losing his vision. With the talking books, he got a little bit of his life back.”
Another way to give is through a donor advised fund (DAF), which allows you to make a charitable donation while receiving an immediate tax benefit. To do this, open a DAF with a financial institution or community foundation, and add funds to that account whenever you’d like. When you’re ready to make a gift, simply request to your fund holder that a donation to be made to the Council.
Regardless of whether you make an IRA gift or give through a DAF, you will need some information to give to your financial advisor:
- Organization’s legal name: Wisconsin Council of the Blind & Visually Impaired, Inc.
- Address: 754 Williamson Street, Madison, WI 53703
- Council’s Employer Identification Number: 39-0977746
As we approach the end of the year, please consider supporting the Council’s work empowering people who are blind or low vision. Your gift will make a meaningful difference for someone adjusting to vision loss. You can learn more at WCBlind.org/Donate, or by contacting Fund Development Director Lori Werbeckes at LWerbeckes@WCBlind.org, or call 608-237-8114.
