Category: charity/Donations

Great Ways to Get Charitable Tax Deductions

Follow these tax tips to get the biggest tax savings when making charitable contributions of cash or checks, household goods, cars or appreciated property.

Choose the right organization

In order for your donation to be deductible, it must go to a nonprofit group that is approved by the IRS. Most often, these are charitable, religious or educational organizations, though they can also be everything from your local volunteer fire company to a group for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

  • If you’re not sure whether the group you want to help is approved by the IRS to receive tax-deductible donations, check online at IRS Exempt Organizations Select Check.
  • This site allows you to enter an organization’s name and location to instantly find out if it qualifies.

Make sure it counts

To write off any cash contributions, no matter how small, you need a canceled check, bank record or a receipt with the charity’s name and donation amount. That means that putting cash in the church collection plate or the Salvation Army bucket is a no-no if you want to be able to take a deduction for it.Your resource on tax filingTax season is here! Check out the Tax Center on AOL Finance for all the tips and tools you need to maximize your return.Go Now

As with all deductions, timing is everything. You can take the deduction for your contribution in the year that you make it.

  • For example, if you mailed a check to your favorite charity on December 31, you can write it off on that year’s tax return.
  • If you charge the donation on a credit card, the write-off is claimed in the year the charge is made, even if you don’t pay the credit card bill until the following year.
  • But a pledge to make a donation is different: Because it’s only a promise to make a future donation, there’s no deduction until you actually follow through.

Donations are limited

There’s also a limit on how much you can deduct. The basic rule is that your contributions to qualified public charities, colleges and religious groups can’t exceed 60 percent of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) (100% of AGI in 2020 for qualified charities).

  • The caps are a bit lower for gifts to other types of nonprofits. When it comes to gifts of appreciated property, the limit drops to 30 percent of AGI.
  • If these restrictions limit your write-off in the year of the gift, the excess deduction carries over to the next year.

Also, keep in mind that you can’t write off a contribution to the extent that you get something in return.

For example:

  • If you buy a $50 ticket to a fundraising dinner at a church, but the cost of the dinner is $20, you can deduct $30.
    • $50 donation – $20 return = $30 deduction
  • For donations of more than $75, the nonprofit must give you a written statement telling you the value of what you received in return and reminding you that you can’t deduct that portion of your contribution.

There’s also a special rule for folks who donate to colleges and universities and receive the right to buy tickets to school athletic events: They can deduct 80 percent of their donation.

Appreciated property

Cash may be king, but if you want a really big tax saver, your best bet may be a donation of appreciated property—securities, real estate, art, jewelry or antiques.

  • If you have owned the property more than a year, you can deduct its full fair market value and escape income tax on the appreciation.
  • For property held one year or less, IRS only allows you to claim a deduction on the price you paid for it.

Let’s say you own stock that you bought many years ago for $1,000 that is now worth $10,000, and that you intend to make a $10,000 gift to a major fundraiser for your alma mater. If you write a check for $10,000, the college gets $10,000, and you get to deduct $10,000.

If instead, you give the $10,000 worth of stock,

  • The college still gets $10,000 (it won’t owe any tax on the profit when it sells the stock.)
  • You still get to deduct $10,000.
  • You eliminate the tax you’d owe if you sold the stock for $10,000: Such a sale would trigger a capital gains tax on the $9,000 of profit, and that would cost you $1,350. Making your gift with stock instead of cash saves you that $1,350.

If you don’t really want to part with the stock because you think it’s still a good investment, give it away anyway. Then use your $10,000 of cash to buy the shares back in the open market. That way you’ll only be taxed on future appreciation.

How a gift is used affects donor value

If you’re donating tangible personal property, what the charity does with the item affects how much you can deduct.

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  • If you donate land so the local homeless shelter can build a new facility to house more people, you can write off the full market value.
  • If you donate a work of art to the shelter for its fundraising auction, you only get a deduction for the price you paid for the artwork.
  • What if you donated the piece of art to a museum that will display it as part of its collection? In that case, you get to deduct the full market value.

For property worth more than $5,000 ($10,000 for stock in closely-held firms), you’ll need to get a formal appraisal. You’ll also have to make sure the appraiser is a member of a recognized professional group or meets minimum education and experience guidelines. If you don’t, the IRS can disallow your deduction.

Contributing household items

Donating used goods such as clothing, linens, electronics, appliances and furniture gets you a write-off for the item’s fair market value at the time you donated it, which may be considerably less than what you originally paid.

The IRS has a helpful booklet on this subject, Publication 561: Determining the Value of Donated Property.

For items valued at more than $500, you’ll need to fill out Form 8283 and attach it to your return. On this form you have to

  • describe each item over $500 that you donated,
  • identify the recipient, and
  • provide information about the value of the item, including your cost or adjusted basis.

Congress has clamped down on donations of household goods to make sure folks aren’t inflating the value of their used stuff.

  • No tax deduction is allowed unless an item is in good condition or better.
  • If an item in less-than-good condition is valued at more than $500, you can take a deduction only if you get the item appraised and attach the appraisal to your return.
  • Congress also gave the IRS broad authority to deny deductions for low-value items such as used socks and underwear.

When preparing your taxes with TurboTax, you can use ItsDeductible Online to help you value and track your donations. This free program gives guidance on prices for commonly donated items and is designed to transfer your donation information to your tax return. ItsDeductible is a built-in feature on TurboTax Deluxe and above.

Donating vehicles

If the claimed value of your donated vehicle is more than $500, in most cases your deduction is limited to the amount the car brings when it’s sold at auction.

  • The charity has 30 days after it sells your vehicle to issue you a Form 1098-C that shows the sale price.
  • You must attach that form to your tax return or the IRS will disallow the deduction.

There are, however, some situations where you’re permitted to claim the car’s estimated market value:

  • If the charity significantly improves the vehicle,
  • makes significant use of it, or
  • gives the vehicle (or sells it at a discount) to a poor person who needs transportation.

For more information, check the IRS article: IRS Guidance Explains Rules for Vehicle Donations.

Volunteer services

Don’t overlook the volunteer work you perform, which may also generate a deduction. You can write off many out-of-pocket expenses you incur to do good work, such as costs for:

  • materials
  • supplies
  • uniforms
  • stationery
  • stamps
  • parking
  • tolls

You can also deduct the cost of driving to and from your volunteer work, at a rate of 14 cents per mile. If you take public transportation, that bus or rail fare is deductible, too.

But here’s the bad news: The value of services you provide as a volunteer don’t merit a write-off. For instance, if you’re a carpenter and you help a nonprofit group build a home for the poor, you can deduct travel costs and building supplies you buy, but not the value of the work you do. (That’s not as hard-hearted as it may seem. If you were paid to do the work, you’d have to report the pay as income, which would drive up your tax bill.)

For more tax tips in 5 minutes or less, subscribe to the Turbo Tips podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and iHeartRadio

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Retirement Planning Demystified

What you need to know about taking tax deductions for charitable donations. Links in this video: Retirement Planning Insights – https://www.tenonfinancial.com/newsle… Taxes in Retirement – https://www.facebook.com/groups/taxes…#RetirementPlanning#TaxPlanning#CharitableDonations

Doing Good May Make People Look Better

Giving is good for you. For years, researchers have been finding that people who support charities or volunteer for causes can benefit from being generous.

For example, they might learn new things, meet new people or make others whom they care about happier. Researchers have also found that giving may make the givers themselves happier, more confident and even physically healthier.

As experts on the science of giving, we looked into whether there’s another possible upside to doing good: physical attractiveness. It may seem surprising, but across three peer-reviewed studies, we found that others rate people who give money or volunteer for nonprofits, give to their friends and even register as organ donors as more attractive. We also found that more attractive people are also more likely to give in various ways.

While our findings may raise eyebrows, we actually weren’t too surprised – the personal benefits of being generous are well established in our field.

3 studies

Our first study examined data from a large, nationally representative sample of older U.S. adults. We found that seniors who volunteered were rated as more attractive by interviewers than those who did not volunteer – despite the fact that the raters were unaware of respondents’ volunteering status.

The second study analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. teens for several years. We found that those who volunteered as teenagers were rated as more attractive once they became young adults. We also found the reverse: Those rated as more attractive by interviewers as teenagers were more likely to volunteer when they grew up. Again, raters did not know about participants’ volunteering history.

Our third study used data collected from a sample of Wisconsin teenagers from 1957 until 2011. We found that teens whose yearbook photos were rated as more attractive by 12 raters were more likely to give money over 40 years later, compared to their less attractive peers. We also found that these adult givers were rated as more attractive by interviewers than nongivers around 13 years later, when they were around the age of 72.

In all three studies, raters were asked to give their opinions on how good-looking participants were, using a rating scale where lower numbers meant less attractive, and higher numbers meant more so. Although beauty can be in the eye of the beholder, people often agree on who is more or less attractive.

A halo effect

Our results suggest that giving could make people better-looking, and that being more attractive could make people more likely to donate to charity or volunteer.

These findings build on previous research indicating that beauty confers a “halo” – people attribute other positive characteristics to them, such as intelligence and good social skills.

These halos may explain why attractive people tend to marry better-looking and more educated spouses and are more likely to be employed and make more money.

Those higher earnings, logically, mean that good-looking people have more money to give away. They also make more friends, which means they have larger social networks – subjecting them to more requests to donate and volunteer.

Not just a bias toward beauty

Because we were aware of this beauty bias, in all three of our studies, we statistically controlled for demographic factors such as gender, marital status and income.

We also controlled for respondents’ mental health, physical health and religious participation, given their links to both attractiveness and giving.

So, we know that our results are not explained by these preexisting differences. In other words, it is not merely that more attractive people are more likely to be married, richer, healthier or happier – and therefore more likely to give.

But, there could be other alternative explanations that were not measured.

Why this happens

We would love to know whether doing good actually causes people to be more good-looking. But it is not possible to figure that out for sure.

For example, in studies on what smoking does to your health, scientists could not require some participants to be long-term smokers and other participants to avoid tobacco altogether. Such arrangements would not be ethical or even possible.

Similarly, we can’t require some participants to be long-term givers and others to never volunteer or support charities. Most people give in some way, so asking them to stop would not be realistic, or even ethical.

Still, by following what a group of specific individuals do over time, we can discover whether giving at one time can predict whether someone will be more physically attractive at another time – just like we know that people who smoke have higher rates of lung cancer than those who don’t.

Overall, using the best available evidence, we find that it is indeed possible that doing good today may make you appear better-looking tomorrow.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation’s newsletter.]

To be sure, we don’t know why beauty and doing good are linked. But it’s possible that people who take care of others are also more likely to take care better care of themselves. This possibility is supported by our previous research showing that volunteers are more likely to get flu shots and take other health precautions.

Taken together, our three studies confirm the link between moral and physical beauty that was described in ancient Greece by the poet Sappho: “He who is fair to look upon is good, and he who is good, will soon be fair also.”

Our findings also contradict myths that beautiful people are shallow or mean, as suggested in the movie “Legally Blonde” and countless other “mean-girls” films about teens.

Instead, we have found another way that doing good could be good for you.

By: Sara Konrath Associate Professor, Indiana University, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, IUPUI & Femida Handy Professor of Social Policy at the School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania

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D. L. Hughley points out the hypocrisy behind painting Black people with broad strokes

The Billionaire Who Wanted to Die Broke Is Now Officially Broke

 Charles “Chuck” Feeney, 89, who cofounded airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers with Robert Miller in 1960 amassed billions while living a life of monk-like frugality. As a philanthropist, he pioneered the idea of Giving While Living—spending most of your fortune on big, hands-on charity bets instead of funding a foundation upon death. Since you can’t take it with you—why not give it all away, have control of where it goes, and see the results with your own eyes? 

“We learned a lot. We would do some things differently, but I am very satisfied. I feel very good about completing this on my watch,” Feeney tells Forbes. “My thanks to all who joined us on this journey. And to those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.” 

Over the last four decades, Feeney has donated more than $8 billion to charities, universities, and foundations worldwide through his foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies. When I first met him in 2012, he estimated he had set aside about $2 million for his and his wife’s retirement. In other words, he’s given away 375,000% more money than his current net worth. And he gave it away anonymously. While many wealthy philanthropists enlist an army of publicists to trumpet their donations, Feeney went at great lengths to keep his gifts secret. Because of his secretive, globe-trotting philanthropy campaign, Forbes called him the  James Bond of Philanthropy. 

Feeney and Buffett
Chuck Feeney and Warren Buffett in 2011 ©Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation/Barbara Kinney

But Feeney has come in from the cold. The man who amassed a fortune selling luxury goods to tourist, and later launched private equity powerhouse General Atlantic, lives in an apartment in San Francisco that has the austerity of a freshman dorm room. When I visited a few years ago, inkjet-printed photos of friends and family hung from the walls over a plain, wooden table. On the table sat a small Lucite plaquethat read Congratulations to Chuck Feeney for $8 billion of philanthropic giving. 

That’s Feeney—understated profile, oversized impact. No longer a secret, his extreme charity and big-bet grants have won over the most influential entrepreneurs and philanthropists. His stark generosity and gutsy investments influenced Bill Gates and Warren Buffett when they launched the Giving Pledge in 2010—an aggressive campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest to give away at least half their fortunes before their deaths. “Chuck was a cornerstone in terms of inspiration for the Giving Pledge,” says Warren Buffett. “He’s a model for us all. It’s going to take me 12 years after my death to get done what he’s doing within his lifetime.”  

Feeney gave big money to big problems—whether bringing peace to Northern Ireland, modernizing Vietnam’s health care system, or spending $350 million to turn New York’s long-neglected Roosevelt Island into a technology hub. He didn’t wait to grant gifts after death or set up a legacy fund that annually tosses pennies at a $10 problem. He hunted for causes where he can have a dramatic impact and went all-in. 

In 2019, I worked with the Atlantic Philanthropies on a report titled Zero Is the Hero, which summarized Feeney’s decades of go-for-broke giving. While it contains hundreds of numbers, stats, and data points, Feeney summarized his mission a few sentences. “I see little reason to delay giving when so much good can be achieved through supporting worthwhile causes. Besides, it’s a lot more fun to give while you live than give while you’re dead.” 

Chuck Feeney signing documents
On September 14, 2020 Chuck Feeney–with wife Helga Feeney–signed documents in San Francisco marking the close of the Atlantic Philanthropies after four decades of global giving. The Atlantic Philanthropies

On September 14, 2020, Feeney completed his four-decade mission and signed the documents to shutter the Atlantic Philanthropies. The ceremony, which happened over Zoom with the Atlantic Philanthropies’ board, included video messages from Bill Gates and former California Governor Jerry Brown. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent an official letter from the U.S. Congress thanking Feeney for his work.

At its height, the Atlantic Philanthropies had 300-plus employees and ten global offices across seven time zones. The specific closure date was set years ago as part of his long-term plan to make high-risk, high-impact donations by setting a hard deadline to give away all his money and close shop. The 2020 expiration date added urgency and discipline. It gave the Atlantic Philanthropies the time to document its history, reflect on wins and losses, and create a strategy for other institutions to follow. As Feeney told me in 2019: “Our giving is based on the opportunities, not a plan to stay in business for a long time.”  

While his philanthropy is out of business, its influence reverberates worldwide thanks to its big bets on health, science, education, and social action. Where did $8 billion go? Feeney gave $3.7 billion to education including nearly $1 billion to his alma mater Cornell, which he attended on the G.I. Bill.More than $870 went to human rights and social change, like $62 million in grants to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and $76 million for grassroots campaigns supporting the passage of Obamacare. He gave more than $700 million in gifts to health ranging from a $270 grant to improve public healthcare in Vietnam to a $176 million gift to the Global Brain Health Institute at University of California, San Francisco.  

One of Feeney’s final gifts, $350 million forCornell to build a technology campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island is a classic example of his giving philosophy. While notoriously frugal in his own life, Feeney was ready to spend big and go for broke when the value and potential impact outweigh the risk. 

FORBES spoke to Influential Philanthropists On How Chuck Feeney Changed Charity And Inspired Giving

warren-buffett

“Chuck’s been the model for us all. If you have the right heroes in life, you’re 90% of the way home. Chuck Feeney is a good hero to have.” WARREN BUFFETT: Chairman & CEO Berkshire Hathaway, The Gates Foundation, The Giving Pledge

laureen-powel-jobs

“Chuck Feeney is a true pioneer. Spending down his resources during his lifetime has inspired a generation of philanthropists, including me. And his dedication to anonymous giving—and focus on addressing the problems of the day—reflect the strength of his character and social conscience. We all follow in his footsteps.” LAUREEN POWEL JOBS: Founder and President, Emerson Collective

bill-gates

“Chuck created a path for other philanthropists to follow. I remember meeting him before starting the Giving Pledge. He told me we should encourage people not to give just 50%, but as much as possible during their lifetime. No one is a better example of that than Chuck. Many people talk to me about how he inspired them. It is truly amazing.” BILL GATES: Microsoft cofounder, The Gates Foundation, The Giving Pledge

sandford-weill

“Chuck took giving to a bigger extreme than anyone. There’s a lot of rich people, very few of them fly coach. He never spent the money on himself and gave everything away. A lot of people are now understanding the importance of giving it away, and the importance of being involved in the things you give your money to. But I don’t fly coach!” SANDY WEILL: Financier, Former Chairman of Weill Cornell Medicine

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“Chuck pioneered the model where giving finishes late in life, rather than starting. He was able to be more aggressive, he was able to take bigger risks and just get more enjoyment from his giving. There’s great power in giving while living. The longer the distance between the person who funded the philanthropy and the work, the greater the risk of it becoming bureaucratic and institutional—that’s the death knell for philanthropy.” JOHN ARNOLD: Former Hedgefund Manage, Founder of Arnold Ventures

PHOTO CREDITS: WARREN BUFFET, BILL GATES AND SANDY WEILL BY MARTIN SHOELLER FOR FORBES; LAUREEN POWEL JOBS BY BRIGITTE LACOMBE; JOHN ARNOLD: COURTESY OF ARNOLD VENTURES

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Steven Bertoni

Steven Bertoni

I lead Forbes’ CEO Network and cover the Forbes Under 30, technology, entrepreneurs, billionaires and Venture Capital. Podcast Host and Founder of the Forbes Opportunity Zones Summit.

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4 Ways Companies Can Foster a Culture of Giving Back

Grow Your Business, Not Your Inbox

It goes without saying that 2020 has been a pretty rough year in a lot of ways. The global economy took a significant gut-punch with an unprecedented level of unemployment, and news broadcasts highlighted record numbers of people turning to food banks for support. Maybe you know somebody who has lost their job this year, or maybe you’ve found yourself in that unfortunate boat. 

If that’s not the case, count yourself lucky, and do what you can to put a little bit more good out into the world. The holiday season — and specifically December — accounts for 30 percent of annual giving, but building a company culture where giving back is a year-round occurrence has numerous benefits. For starters, it just feels good to make a positive difference and that positivity trickles down through employees.

Companies that regularly participate in philanthropic causes report happier employees. As you may very well already know, happier employees make for more productive employees (13 percent more productive to be exact) and overall, a more productive and successful business. 

Giving back is good for your brand — plain and simple

Besides the impact of helping others — the most important reason to give — and overall happier employees, businesses that embrace the philanthropic spirit are regarded in a higher value by consumers. As former St. Louis Rams player Torry Holt points out, regarding the NFL’s relationship with United Way, “the act of giving back evokes emotion and fosters an authentic connection.” It’s that sort of relationship that today’s consumers take notice of in a business. According to a 2016 survey, the majority of millennials prefer companies that actively give to charity. 

Related: 4 Ways Your Company Benefits From Giving Back

When a company aligns itself with charitable causes it’s not just benefiting the direct recipients of that giving, but its employees, and customers. So now that we’ve touched upon the benefits of creating a culture of giving within a business, how can leaders go about actually weaving it into their company? 

1. Volunteer days

Encouraging a spirit of giving in your employees shouldn’t be difficult and there’s a good chance many of them already have causes that they’re passionate about. One of the best ways to fuel team members’ passions for these causes is through a day — or even week — of volunteering. The concept is simple and incredibly effective: a business sets aside a certain number of days where employees are given time to volunteer with the charity of their choice. 

Some companies may simply allow employees to pick any organization to work with, while others may offer a selection of charities or nonprofits for employees to choose from. Team leaders may also choose to go with a majority rule and have employees vote on which charities the company wants to align itself with for volunteer work. Building volunteer days into a business not only builds camaraderie between employees but foster relationships within the community. 

2. Lend your resources

Another big way that companies can make a positive impact in their communities is by taking the pro-bono route and lending their resources free of charge. If your business has some extra space that’s not being used on the weekends or at night, consider reaching out to a nonprofit and offering it. 

Related: Here Are Legitimate Fundraisers Helping Damaged and Destroyed Small Businesses

One of the most beneficial ways that a company can offer its resources is through the knowledge of its employees. Whether it’s by offering a company’s time through a mentorship program (such as graphic design) or through a pro-bono service (such as legal advice or tax preparation, for instance) for those less fortunate, these acts of charitable giving can build meaningful relationships and have a dramatic impact on the lives of others.  

3. Get your customers involved

We’ve already touched on the fact that consumers view charitable companies in a more positive light, so why not get those customers involved in the giving? It’s easy for a company to simply write a check and hand it over to a charity, but it’s more inclusive if they bring their customers into the act. Company matching programs are a fantastic way of doing this and with the right structure, can be a robust way of generating substantial fundraising.  

Another way to go about involving your customers is by encouraging recurring donations to a nonprofit. Applications like Donorbox or GoFundMe make it incredibly easy for businesses to incorporate giving into their existing website. Giving incentives that include the consumer not only can provide much needed financial support, but build a stronger connection between a business and its customer base.

4. Become an event sponsor

Sponsoring a charitable event in the community is another way businesses can both lend their support and weave a spirit of philanthropy into the existing company culture. There are endless ways a company can choose to go about sponsoring a community event. Simply making a financial contribution is probably the most common — and oftentimes the most needed — but even with that, there are options: raffles, silent auctions, etc.

Many times charitable events will also need volunteers or a place to host an event, so again, there are a variety of paths a business can choose to go down when it comes to sponsoring an event. Whether it’s financially, or through its resources, when a company aligns itself with a charitable event, it’s showing a level of commitment to the community it serves. 

Related: 3 Ways to Give Back That Don’t Require a Financial Investment

Business leaders should look at giving back as an investment and apply a similar ROI strategy when choosing how to give,  just as they would any business decision. Building a culture of giving within your business shouldn’t be complicated and incorporating several different strategies is going to yield the best results — both externally and internally.

Chris Porteous

By: Chris Porteous Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor / High Performance Growth Marketer

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When Business Becomes a Global Force for Good

Entrepreneurs start businesses for a variety of reasons. Some want flexibility over their time, some want to make a life-changing sum of money, some want to be able to work from anywhere and some want to prove to their ex-boss that their idea was a good one. Some entrepreneurs start businesses to change the world for the better. 

From tragedy to positive impact

Zareen Ahmed’s driving force is about creating a legacy. Zareen founded an amazing business called Gift Wellness in 2013. The business offers a range of toiletries and sanitary products made with a total commitment to wellness, the environment and society. Every time a customer buys products, they help to fund a gift of sanitary products to women living in refugee camps. To date, Zareen’s company has given over 5.5 million sanitary kits to these women living in hardship.

Additionally, Zareen and her team are on a mission to eradicate plastic from bathrooms, and she Zareen has also founded the Halimah School of Excellence and the Halimah College in Pakistan which provides education for hundreds of vulnerable girls.

Related: 8 Kobe Quotes That Will Challenge Your Views on Competition, Leadership and Death

Doing all of this in under 10 years requires drive, passion and relentless innovation that can only come from someone who has a burning mission inside them. 

In 2007, Zareen was working as the CEO of a national charity in the UK. Her career was demanding but rewarding; she was frequently speaking to large audiences, commenting in the media and leading a team of over 100. It was in the midst of this that tragedy struck, her teenage daughter Halimah was murdered by a man with mental health issues who had become obsessed with her. 

Zareen was thrown into a pit of despair and pain that no mother should ever experience. In a bid to make sense of what had happened, Zareen committed that she would turn her daughter’s tragedy into a legacy of hope and inspiration. Zareen and her daughter had shared a passion for causes that could change the world work and had made a pact that one day the two of them would start a charity together. 

Zareen envisaged creating businesses and organizations that would do massive amounts of good in the world and would honor the commitment she and her daughter shared. Zareen launched a trust in her daughter’s name and began fundraising, those funds went into establishing a school and college for orphaned girls. 

Related: How This Female Founder Never Lost Herself When Starting a Successful Business

Zareen believes she is only just getting started. Her vision and mission have never been stronger and her commitment to work together with her daughter to create a positive legacy is helping millions of women globally. She’s connecting women and girls from the most upmarket bathrooms in Mayfair to the most difficult camps on the Syrian border. 

A brilliant entrepreneur whose only client is the planet 

In London there is a top 50 law firm with 200+ employees that you can not become a client of – this firm only has one client, planet Earth. 

Client Earth was started by James Thornton as a way to use the legal system to protect the environment. To date, the firm has mobilized tens of billions of dollars away from coal and into green technology, it has successfully sued the UK government three times over air pollution and won hundreds of cases against companies that harm the natural world. 

Thornton is a perfect example of the rebel and the misfit that Steve Job’s famously referenced when talking about who he was building computers for. Not content to follow in his father’s footsteps as a more conventional lawyer, he decided to blend his passion for the natural world with his family heritage in law. The result was a deep knowledge of the underpinnings of how the law is created and used focused on how it can protect the environment.

“Humanity sits on top of laws,” says Thornton. “If you change those laws, you change the way humanity runs.”

As an ordained Zen priest, he believes that entrepreneurs and change-makers can perform at their best when leveraging a mindfulness practice. “I’ve been involved in some insanely hard legal fights that last for years, involve billions of dollars and massive, negative outcomes if I fail; without a Zen practice, I wouldn’t be able to stay centered and focused.”

Related: 8 Books for Shifting Your Entrepreneurial Perspective

Entrepreneurship is a way of creating change. And these two inspiring entrepreneurs are showing exactly how business can be the engine for positive change for people and the environment we live in. 

By: Daniel Priestley Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP CEO, Dent Global

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