Doing Well by Doing Good
Leave a commentApril 23, 2009 by Rochelle
I found Tom Lehrer’s satirical song The Old Dope Peddler running through my head this morning, particularly the line “Doing well, by doing good.”
Wouldn’t it be great to help others as you also help yourself? Well, you may be able to do just that.
How? Just ask me to search for your unclaimed funds.
I’ll be happy to do that for you on one condition. If I find anything for you, you have to agree to donate 10% of what I find to a charity of your choice. You make the donation out of money you didn’t know you had only when it gets returned to you. You don’t have to take a single cent out of your pocket.
Will you come out ahead? You bet!!
First of all, you’l get to keep up to 90% of the found money or property.
But that’s not all! You may get to reduce your income tax because you will get a receipt for the 10% or more you donated.
And best of all, you get the wonderful feeling of having helped a worthy organization without touching a single cent of the money you now have.
Doing well by doing good? I’ll say!
So what do you have to do?
- Send your full name and as many past addresses as you can remember — street, city, state (no street number or zip needed — I won’t be mailing you) to mailto:rochelletr@yahoo.com. Please include a return email address and telephone number so that I can notify you if I find money for you.
- If I find nothing, you’ve lost nothing except the time it takes to drop me an email. And you can try again for your parents or spouse or children or best friend.
- If I find anything for you, I will contact you. I will forward all the information necessary to contact the agency or agencies holding your property so that you can apply to get it back. This usually involves filling out a single short form and providing some minimal proof that you are the owner. This is much simpler than you think because the agencies you will be contacting have been looking for you. They simply couldn’t find you!
- When you receive your money, make a donation of at least 10% to a charity of your choice. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from giving more… Even if you give all of it away, you will come out ahead. You will have a tax receipt for the full amount and may end up paying less in taxes.
How neat is this? You don’t touch your cash or your savings. And you end up being both a philanthropist and richer! As I said, doing well by doing good.
Thanks for the inspiration, Tom.
If you’d like to contribute a small amount to my Paypal account to help me keep this site going, I would certainly appreciate it.