Donating a boat to charity?
 

I have a boat that I would like to donate to charity. There are many websites for this but I do not know which ones are reputable. Has anyone done this before? Can you recommend a website? The boat is in Freedom, NH. Thank you!

Boat donation
 

It is good to donate to a 501C3 organization. That way, they can give you the proper paperwork for you to make a legitimate tax deduction for the value of the boat. I gave a rowing shell to the rowing club I belong to and they gave me a raft of papers to file with my taxes. They also sold the boat at our Waterfront Festival, so I know the true selling price of the shell.

check to see if its even worth it, I know of someone that donated a POS boat, thinking he would get NADA value for it, only to get a deduction of what the boat sold for, $500, not $3K.

Eagle Scouts
 

My neighbor donated a 30' USSAIL sail boat to the Eagle Scouts. It hasn't been used in decades, The hatches all leak and it was filled with water. USSAIL is out of business and he thought the boat has no value.

The Eagle Scouts spent over a year restoring it. It is beautiful! Last I knew, it is used every summer at a scouting camp. The boys love it!

The Boat Museum in Wolfeboro takes donations and Huggins Hospital Street Fair does. Those are two local ones that come to mind.

I have donated a boat before. Don't expect to get what you believe it is worth for a donation value. I was only able to claim the 500$ that they told me was the minimal donation value. However It tell you the truth it wasn't the deduction I was after. THe boat was 30 years old and had severed the family well, The American cancer society seemed the right choice after the death of my father from cancer. It after all had been his toy, and its only right that it raised money to be donated in his name to a charity that ment so much.

So my point is this donate a boat, only if it is far the thought of raising money for a worth while cause. A cause that means something to you. I can't remember the name of the firm I used, but they accepted donations, for many many charities, and donated the raised money to the charity of your choice after the boat, car etc. sold. I was provided with the the paper work for the minimum amount upon pick up, and was updated later on about what the boat actually sold for... Now because the boat wasn't sold until almost a year later, the extra few hundred that the boat sold for wasn't worth doing the taxes over again for.

The nice part was the agency that was used, retrieved the boat, from our summer camp and hauled it to their location free of charge. I later found that the had repowered the boat with a new engine prior to sale, so as to ensure the boat had many more years of good service left for the new owner. They then tore down the old motor, and sold it off for parts and scrap. I found all this out because they sent me a paper detailing it all. They tried to sell the original package I donated but, they kept hearing complaints about the age of the engine... so when they got a hull that wasn't in good shape but the engine was in good shape they scraped the boat, and moved the engine....

Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the firm... But what I do remember is how I found them.... I went to a few sites advertising charitable donation, such as the ACS and Breast Cancer Society, and they all had me call this company, who handled their transactions in NH.

Oh, no, LI, did that 30 year old boat SEVER your family? I am so sorry!!!:laugh::laugh::laugh: Not picking on you, it just struck me funny, gave me my laugh of the day-I know it was only a typo.

Donating a boar to charity
 

I donated my boat to NH Technical College over in Laconia several years ago. They were going to keep it and bebuild the engine training the Marine students. I got a letter acknowledging the donation with no amount of money.
I took the fair market value somewhere off the web and used that for my deduction. No problems.