Conditional donations to a charity

[Lootman]

Can I make a donation to a charity and specify either that it not be used for some particular purpose? Or that it should only be used for a particular purpose?

My first thought is that I can. Because when I make my annual donation to my old college, I can tick a box saying that this is for a scholarship fund, or a hardship fund, and so on.

But can I go further than that? For example can I specify that these funds can only benefit (say) Jewish students? Or do I have to find a more narrowly focused charity for that, such as the Jewish widows and students aid trust or the Union of Jewish students?

And in an extreme example, if I want to help just one particular individual student, is there any way to do that within a charity wrapper?

[Howard]

Yes, depending on how much you want to give, you can support individual students. If you want to do this longer term, Universities will welcome this support. If it is significant, for example supporting PhD research, you can negotiate the terms and they will draw up an agreement. It can be very rewarding, especially if one meets the students and their professors and takes an interest in the outcome of the research.

The Development Team at a University will be experienced at giving guidance. For a significant donor they will help choose the project and even discuss the CVs of potential researchers to get the most suitable candidates.

regards

Howard

[DrFfybes]

Can I make a donation to a charity and specify either that it not be used for some particular purpose? Or that it should only be used for a particular purpose?

You could make that request, and charities may comply. However in reality it will have little or no impact on anything but the smallest charities, so donating to a homeless charity but stipulating it can only be used on someone called Trevor simply means the charity diverts funds that would normally go on Trevor elsewhere.

My first thought is that I can. Because when I make my annual donation to my old college, I can tick a box saying that this is for a scholarship fund, or a hardship fund, and so on.

But can I go further than that? For example can I specify that these funds can only benefit (say) Jewish students? Or do I have to find a more narrowly focused charity for that, such as the Jewish widows and students aid trust or the Union of Jewish students?

And in an extreme example, if I want to help just one particular individual student, is there any way to do that within a charity wrapper?

I think there is an issue with specifying a destination with regard to race, gender, or Faith these days as the charity cannot discriminate, although positive discrimination is still allowed. In the extreme example I think it would be considered a gift to the individual. The charity I'm involved with would certainly decline such a donation.

Paul