How To Find A Charity Worth Of Your Donation: Expert’s Advice

Donating money or time to charitable causes is actually a vital part of some of our lives. Donating allows us to help those organizations, which are actually positively impacting the world.

Apart from offering us the feel-good factor and helping the ones who are in need, making charities also help with tax deductions for your business. But at the same time, this giving can also be a confusing and frustrating process.

So, the question is, how will you know which charity is actually doing a great job and which fundraising is actually a scam? So, it is really important to go with a charity that is genuinely worth the donations which you are making.

How To Find A Charity Worth Of Your Donation: Expert’s Advice

So, here in this article, I will offer you some pieces of information that will help you to get the answer to all those questions by yourself. Many of us do make charitable donations, but we do not choose every charity that comes along.

So, how to find a charity worth your donation?

1.     Consider Your Passion

Rather than giving to every charitable organization that asks or turning down all of them, you can let your passion take the responsibility to shortlist them. This is about what is actually vital for you and what are the causes that you will like to support.

There are some people, who know someone, who is or has been suffering from cancer, and this made them donate to charities that are working for cancer patients. I personally think that education is really important.

So, I donate to education funds. These funds provide low-interest loans to those children who can not afford an education. Sometimes, the donation money directly goes for giving basic education to those who can not afford the low-interest loans as well.

When you are thinking of helping underprivileged children, you can blindly trust organizations like the Singapore Children’s Society is a charity organisation dedicated to children. You also can donate to relief funds for any environmental hazards affected families or to those people of catastrophe-stricken countries.

2.     Go Local

It is really great that you are donating to global causes. At the same time, it is also vital to help out your own community. In case you are concerned about the needs in your own community, it will be best to contact local charities and charitable organizations.

You can consider the local food bank and make a considerate amount of donation as per your capacity. The best thing about this is apart from donating cash; you can donate food items as well.

It will give your mind happiness and peace when you will see that your contribution is helping people in your community. You can make donations to any shelter, orphanage, or relief care institution in your locality.

3.     Charity Navigator

Often it becomes really tough to decide whom you should donate. When you are donating to any local institute or organization, it becomes easy for you to track where your money is being spent, and you will be able to check it with your own eyes.

But when you are supporting any national or global cause, it becomes harder to see those donations at work. There are several websites and online platforms that will help you to navigate through different types of charities.

You can go through the reviews, ratings, and also complaints (if any) on those online resources. They will also be able to offer you exact information about the charitable organizations, who are spending how much on which cause.

The Bottom Line

So, when you are going to make a charitable donation next time, consider all these things. You will never want your money to fall into the wrong hands or be wasted by any unfaithful source. So, snake sure that you are donating to a cause that offers you a feeling of peace and serenity; at the same time, you also pick the right places and causes to donate.

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6 Perks Of Using Instagram For Business

As social media usage continues to increase across all demographics, social media marketing has become a viable strategy for businesses. Social media marketing gives companies a way to engage with existing consumers and reach new ones while allowing the businesses to promote their desired tone, culture, and mission. One of the well-known platforms that Singaporeans frequent is Instagram (IG).

With over a billion users worldwide, it would be foolish to skip on the advantages of using Instagram for your business!

#1: CONNECT TO CLIENTS ACROSS MULTIPLE CHANNELS

Using Instagram allows you to connect to multiple channels to increase your engagement. You can put the Instagram button to your website to connect your clients to your profile.

As they scroll through your gallery of IG photos, clients can click through your account and start following you. They are likely to re-connect with you later.

#2: PROMOTE AUDIO-VISUAL CONTENT

As visual content is more attractive than chunky text, Instagram provides a huge opportunity for marketers to showcase their products or services. Instead of sending your brochure through email, you can use photos and videos to create a more compelling message.

Photos give your business a chance to highlight your products, while videos show your services in action. Post your company background and behind-the-scenes videos to help create your brand’s image.

#3: TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE HIGH ENGAGEMENT

When you post something on Instagram, many of your followers are likely to see it.

Image credits: unsplash.com

In 2016, IG users liked over 4.2 billion posts per day. Posts with at least one hashtag got an average of 12.6% more engagement than posts without hashtags. Imagine the difference in these numbers due to the recent global lockdowns.

#4: RE-USE MARKETING MATERIALS

Instead of shelling out cash to hold another photoshoot, you can re-use your existing marketing materials and post them on IG. Re-use these photos across your channels and select the best images for your ads.

As we are all crunched for money and time, it is best to work smart.

#5: RESEARCH WHAT YOUR CLIENTS LIKE

IG allows you to research and learn what your clients like. Use your content insights to understand the preferences of your clients. This is an important tool that help you create an accurate profile of your typical client.

This way, you will be able to improve your marketing strategy and grow the number of verified leads in time.

#6: LOOK FOR BRAND AMBASSADORS

The word of mouth is a powerful marketing strategy. It helps you to convince potential clients as satisfied clients speak on your behalf.

Image credits: unsplash.com

Keep generating good feedback and building stronger relationships with your loyal clients by selecting some of them as your IG brand ambassadors.

Sources: 1, 2, & 3

 

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Up until relatively recently, the banking industry seemed to be a fairly closed off and cutthroat industry. The various competing national brands jealously guarded their client lists and regarded each client won as a great victory over their adversaries. How could they not take this viewpoint? After all, each client they added to their roster effectively added to their overall deposits, while reducing that of their competitors. Additional deposits meant greater capacity to speculate, invest, generate revenue, and profit, the ultimate goal of every commercial enterprise.

Today, though, times have changed significantly. The rise of banking API architectures powered by advanced banking software, not to mention the seemingly overnight arrival of financial technology (fintech) in its various forms, has forced banks to reconsider how they operate. Banks have been challenged like never before to be agile and adaptable—characteristics that, traditionally, have not exactly been synonymous with the banking industry as a whole.

Projected into the future, the banking industry will soon have to learn to collaborate with one another in order to leverage all the advantages present in our always-connected, digital world. If you’re part of a bank’s leadership team and are still on the fence about whether your organization should engage, here’s what you need to know.

Banking-as-a-Service and the Fintech Revolution

In the past, banks were relatively limited in terms of their own revenue streams, and were almost completely dependent on their various investment products to generate their profits. Because of this, a bank would have traditionally been loath to provide loans to investments it deems risky, even if the potential returns on those loans may be astronomical. Instead, banks have generally preferred to invest in ventures and enterprises that provide a sure, albeit smaller, profit. It’s easy to see the reason for this preference: without any other recourse for revenue generation, each defaulted loan a bank gives would seriously compromise its own capacity to operate further.

This industry-wide baked-in conservatism has allowed the banking industry to flourish, but has also prevented it from becoming agile and responsive to disruptions and external challenges. Recent years have seen a number of these, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the disruption brought about by fintech startups. Suddenly, traditional modes of operation were simply unavailable because of the coronavirus. At the same time, many services that banks had offered, such as convenient deposits and bills payments, could be executed from anywhere using mobile apps designed by fintech companies.

Luckily, it seems like banks have been able to successfully pivot towards a strategy of collaboration with fintech companies. Instead of treating them like competitors encroaching on their territory, banks have sought to partner with them to provide services that fintechs would otherwise not have access to. Unlike other industries, financial institutions like banks are heavily regulated. Had fintech companies attempted to offer the services that banks do, they would have become subject to those regulations as well, which would have significantly reduced their time to market and compromised their own organizational agility.

To circumvent this, banks have elected to provide fintech companies access to some of their services, usually for a fee. These services can include deposits, interest payments, offshore transfers, and others that add value to fintech apps. Collectively, this is referred to as banking-as-a-service (BaaS), and it has changed how banks do business dramatically. Instead of being tied to their investment products for revenue generation, banks can now become landlords, collecting rent and access fees in exchange for the services only they can provide. For their part, fintech apps seem content to simply pay for access, allowing them to focus on their core competencies.

How Does This Relate to Bank-to-Bank Collaboration?

Interestingly, many of the strategic lessons learned from the rise of BaaS also apply to potential interbank collaboration. Some corporate banks have become increasingly specialized in the services they provide, scaling up their operations by moving many of their business processes offshore. Unfortunately, smaller banks don’t usually have the bandwidth and resources necessary to build offshore processing facilities in the same way. But by seeking to partner with larger banks that have pre-built facilities, they can increase their market beyond their own borders. The larger banking partner again moves into the role of rent-taker, so this model is beneficial for them as well.

For example, say, a large global bank has established a niche for itself in gemstone financing. Smaller banks who would like to expand into this financial niche could seek to partner with this bank for a fee, gaining access to the larger partner’s years of experience, their product menu designed for the niche, and most importantly, the backend processes of the bank itself.

This assumes that the smaller banks would have already invested in a banking software that could interface with the larger partner’s systems, an undertaking that would have some costs associated with it. However, electing not to upgrade bank systems would not just close out the possibility of interbank collaboration. It would also jeopardize smaller banks’ abilities to collaborate with anyone, a definite no-no in today’s interconnected world. A stage-by-stage digital transformation may give your bank the best of both worlds: immediate access to the most profitable parts of the newly digital banking ecosystem, while also spacing out the capital needed to complete implementation.

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How To File Taxes as a Freelancer

So you finally started a freelancing business. Perhaps you decided that office life isn’t for you, and you want to strike out on your own. Or maybe you prefer to live an unencumbered life. Regardless of your reasons, you are not alone. Upwork estimates that more than a third of the U.S. workforce does freelance work, whether part-time or as a full-fledged career.

And it’s easy to see why. You get to choose how and when you work, select your clients and projects, and most importantly, be your own boss. You are only accountable to yourself and the people you choose to work with.

But freedom comes with responsibility, and not even the self-employed are exempt from taxes. While regular employees have their taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks, freelancers are responsible for their tax obligations themselves.

Here’s everything you need to know about filing taxes as a freelancer.

The basics of freelancing and taxes

Whether you call yourself a freelancer or an independent contractor, it’s your job to figure out how much you’re going to pay and when.

Freelancer or self-employed?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) considers you self-employed if you meet one of the following conditions:

Simply put, if you freelance, you’re self-employed.

Freelancer taxes you need to pay

For starters, you will need to file an annual return if you earn $400 or more in a year. You are also required to pay estimated taxes quarterly. If you underpay or fail to pay your quarterly taxes, you may be subject to an additional fine. 

The deadline for estimated taxes is the 15th of the month following the fiscal quarter:

  • First quarter – April 15
  • Second quarter – June 15
  • Third quarter – September 15
  • Fourth quarter – January 15

Freelancers are also responsible for paying a 15.3% federal self-employment tax to cover Social Security and Medicare contributions. Regular employees only pay half that amount, but since you’re working for yourself, you’ll need to cover the full cost. 

Depending on where you live, you may also be on the hook for state and local income and self-employment taxes.

How do freelancers pay taxes

Instead of the standard W-2 form, freelancers receive Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, from clients who pay $600 or more. A Schedule C attachment to your tax return is then used to declare payments for your services. Make sure to report all your income from self-employment, even from clients who didn’t send a Form 1099. 

Use Form 1040-ES, Estimated Tax for Individuals, to calculate your quarterly taxes.

If you use an online payment system to receive income, you can request a Form 1099-K, Payment Card and Third Party Network Transactions, from the financial company.

Benefits of a tax professional

Since freelancers are expected to stay on top of their finances and tax obligations, they need to track every business-related transaction, including income and expenses. You stand to save a lot of time, money, and energy if they partner with a tax professional.

Unlike most employees, your financial situation may differ from month to month. And since you’re filing as a business, your tax return could become complicated.

Working with a tax service such as TFX also allows you to take advantage of tax benefits and deductions that you might not have known about.

Freelancer deductibles

With your freelancer tax obligations growing, it’s important that you take advantage of benefits and deductions to minimize your tax bill. You are entitled to claim deductions on expenses that are related to your freelancing business.

Freelancers who work from home can take a home office deduction. This allows you to claim costs such as your home power and internet bills, insurance costs, and other home expenses as a business expense. You may also deduct from your taxes the cost of setting up your office and new equipment and supplies.

The key to maximizing your deductions is good recordkeeping. Make sure to save every receipt in case the IRS wants to look at your records. You may be working for yourself, but you still need to prepare accurate financial records for your freelancing business.

Few freelancers have the time and energy to file their returns themselves. The tax code can be complicated, and filing a complete return takes time away from your work. Trust the tax experts to ensure a fast and accurate return.

 

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Know the Top Seven Tips to Boost Your Creativity for a Successful Career

Writing is not an easy job at all. If you ever notice any interesting piece of writing, you will find that it is sewn with some unexpected brilliant ideas. The “idea” can lead a person to become an excellent writer and can make someone not so good. It is all about creativity. Creativity is such a skill which develops in a person as the person gets well-versed with a language.

So, it is clear that to enhance the creative skill you have to make strong your basic language skills. As per the World Economic Forum Study, by 2020 creativity will become the 3rd most prominent skill to look for in the job seekers to hire them in the company. In this write-up, you can come to know about the top seven tips for boosting your creativity skill in writing:

  1. Understand your audience

Before you set out for writing any piece, you have to understand your audience. It is important because you have to arrange your write-up accordingly. Furthermore, your writing must depict the reason to choose this theme, plot, and character.

The narrative decision is another prime aspect depended upon selection of your target audience. Narration is the art of telling the story that is reliable as well as helpful for making the content more intrigue.

  1. You have to read more and more

Reading is the significant tips to become a good writer. Thus, if you seriously want to choose writing as your career, you have to spare time for reading. By reading different pieces of writing such as poems, short stories, dramas, and novels, you will get more and more idea to make your write-up better. Blogs, magazines, journals can also assist you in developing your skills of language and come up with new ideas.

These new ideas allow you to compose the lines beautifully, simple and interesting. IELTS preparation exam is associated with examining the English language basic skills of a person. Attempting this exam can help you a lot too with some other pertinent pieces of information related to English.

  1. Proper researching

You may think that how research can help in boosting the creativity level? Though it is only for gaining information, another hidden benefit is there. While you are researching on some specific topics online, you can find a number of result URLs. While going through the content pieces on some of the URLs, you are getting the ideas of the writing ways on this topic.

Moreover, even you can notice the choice of words which goes perfectly with the flow of writing. It will also provide new ideas for promoting your creativity level during writing.

  1. Practicing the crafting skill

Composing or crafting the words in unique ways to make the readers delve into the content is the main motto of best writers. Reading of various types of content only increases your stock of words and different ways of writing. But practicing is the only way to grasp those skills. So, before you become a professional writer, you have to make the basics of the English language clear, mainly the grammatical portion.

If you want you can take preparation for IELTS Singapore to check your basics grade. You have to emphasize on the tricks utilized for crafting any content and extract some ideas from them to develop yours. You can even follow some books which will teach the methods of interacting with your audiences via your write-up.

  1. Selection of voice

You may have noticed that various authors prefer varied writing methods to involve the readers into their write-up. They have their own point of views, tastes, values, and rules for tailoring their creativity. Similarly, to become a successful writer, you have to make such choices for developing your own creativity and reflecting it in your content.

While choosing these writing aspects, make sure that it perfectly goes with the writing style you have chosen to indulge the readers into it. You must always try to utilize the tricks and develop an authentic writing style which will be your identity.

  1. Never mingle obscurity with mystery

In most cases, it has been observed that the writers become addled with mystery and obscurity. You must remember creativity boosts with a simple flawless writing style, not with the use of complex words in the writing.

Whenever you are writing some fictions or thrilling stories keep it as simple as can be so that mysteries can create its great impact. Otherwise, the write-up will become less intriguing.

  1. Go for a writing workshop

You must know that a writer after completing a write-up cannot find out the mistakes in the writing. So, there are editors for doing this job. But there is another way by which you can check the write-up thoroughly and that is to attend the writer’s workshop. Here, you can distribute each others’ writing and go through it.

It will promote you to enrich your word stocks along with creative skills. Additionally, you are able to find out the mistakes and improvise some area to make it look perfect. This will enhance your flawless writing skill at the same time.

By following these seven important tips you can boost your creativity to attain a successful career in writing in the future.

Author Bio: Garima Sharma is a versed blogger. She tries to discover new trends in the world and love to write blogs. She writes for a wide variety of topics including Education like GMAT, GRE, SAT industry and also writes for Digital Marketing, Health, Fitness and Technology, and many more.

 

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