I used to think that a dollar in my DAF[1] was approximately as good as a dollar in my normal bank account for making the world a better place. Lots of orgs try to measure or increase “charitable dollars,” with an implication that a 20-40% boost in charitable dollars via tax planning strategies[2] is highly worthwhile.

But in the political giving world, charitable money is worth quite a bit less than more-flexible money and so if you are thinking about doing political giving you may not want to put so much into a DAF, because it restricts your options quite a bit.

(When I say “charitable” I mean money that is restricted to granting to 501c3 orgs, and that's opposed to what I call “flex” money which has no such restriction. And yes, I acknowledge that this post is very US-centric.)

Political giving is a [...]

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Outline:

(01:02) Charitable money is hard to use politically

(01:35) Campaigns buy a lot of advertising

(02:39) Timing

(03:30) So what are PACs anyway?

(04:18) Beyond individual campaigns

(05:56) PACs are even more flexible

(06:36) Don't forget parties

(07:40) Overall

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First published:

Source:

Linkpost URL:
https://lincolnquirk.substack.com/p/when-is-a-dollar-not-a-dollar

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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