How Do I Donate My Required Minimum Distribution to Charity?

Cardio Renal Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity organization. Your donation advances our mission to provide a solution beyond dialysis.

If you are in your seventies, the IRS eventually stops asking and starts telling: money must come out of your IRA every year whether you need it or not. That forced withdrawal is called a required minimum distribution, or RMD. Many people in this position ask the same plain question — what do I do with money I am required to take but do not need? One answer deserves to be better known: you can send some or all of it directly to charity, and if you do it the right way, the IRS never taxes it. That move is called a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD.

The Short Version

A qualified charitable distribution is a direct transfer from your IRA to a qualified charity. You must be 70½ or older on the day of the transfer. The money moves straight from your IRA custodian to the charity — it never passes through your bank account. Because it never reaches you, it is excluded from your taxable income entirely. For 2026, you can move up to $111,000 per person this way; a married couple can each give up to their own limit from their own IRAs.

How a QCD Satisfies Your RMD

RMDs currently begin at age 73 (75 for people born in 1960 or later). A QCD counts toward your required minimum distribution, dollar for dollar. If your RMD for the year is $30,000 and you direct $30,000 to charity as a QCD, your requirement is fully satisfied — and unlike a normal withdrawal, none of that $30,000 shows up as income on your tax return.

Two details matter here:

• Order matters. The first dollars out of your IRA in a year are treated as your RMD. If you want a QCD to count toward it, make the QCD before taking withdrawals for yourself — money already taken out cannot be put back and re-sent.
• Timing matters. The transfer must be completed by December 31 to count for that year, and custodians often need several weeks to process QCD checks near year-end. Starting in November or early December is wise.

Why Exclusion Beats a Deduction

A QCD is not a charitable deduction — it is an exclusion, which is usually better. A deduction only helps if you itemize, and most retirees now take the standard deduction. An exclusion helps everyone equally, because the money never enters your adjusted gross income at all. A lower AGI can also reduce knock-on costs that are tied to income, such as Medicare premium surcharges and the taxable share of Social Security benefits. You cannot claim both: the same dollars cannot be excluded as a QCD and also deducted.

The Rules, Plainly

• The gift must come from an IRA — traditional, rollover, or inherited. Workplace plans such as active 401(k)s and 403(b)s do not qualify directly; some people roll funds to an IRA first, which has its own rules and timing.
• The charity must be an eligible 501(c)(3) public charity. QCDs cannot go to donor-advised funds, private foundations, or supporting organizations.
• The transfer must be direct — custodian to charity. A check from the custodian made out to the charity, even if you hand-deliver it, is the usual form.
• Ask the charity for a written acknowledgment of the gift for your records.

How to Make a QCD to the Cardio Renal Foundation

If heart and kidney research is where you want the money to work, the steps are simple:

• Call your IRA custodian and say you want a qualified charitable distribution — they have a standard process and often a standard form.
• Give them our legal name and tax ID exactly: Cardio Renal Foundation Inc, EIN 33-4359765.
• So the gift is credited and acknowledged correctly, contact us at donations@cardiorenalfoundation.org or (646) 770-3946 for the current mailing instructions for custodian checks, and tell us the gift is on its way.

Your custodian's paperwork is the one part only you can start — and the December 31 deadline is the one part neither of us can move. If this year's RMD is still ahead of you, this is the moment in the year when this option is worth the most.

Have a donor-advised fund instead? A QCD cannot go into one — but a grant can come out of one, to us. If you hold a donor-advised fund with a sponsor such as Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, or the PayPal Giving Fund, you can recommend a grant to the Cardio Renal Foundation at any time (our Donor Advised Fund page walks through it): name Cardio Renal Foundation Inc, EIN 33-4359765, as the grantee.

At the Cardio Renal Foundation, gifts from readers like you keep plain-language education like this free, and fund research aimed at a future where dialysis is no longer the default.

This article is informational only and is not tax, legal, or financial advice. QCD and RMD rules depend on your individual situation — confirm the details with your tax advisor or IRA custodian before acting.