A New Year's Goal: Charitable Giving

Often charitable giving is associated with the end of the year decision to give to charity in order to lower tax liabilities for income taxes and estate taxes. Charitable giving also is associated with gifting to charities upon death in order to lower an individual's estate taxes.
There are a couple of interesting articles regarding different ways of looking at charitable giving.
One article written by Claudia Buck titled, "Personal Finance: You don't have to be super-rich to give to charity," talks about anyone rich or less rich can leave money to charities upon death.
Another article written by Dan Pollotta of the Wall Street Journal titled, "Why Can't We Sell Charity Like We Sell Perfume?" talks about the idea of allowing non-profit organizations to compete with for-profit organizations to encourage more charitable services to make a profit that then can do even more good for society.
No matter what your circumstances, estate planning can include charitable inclinations and desires.