About Us
CHARITY CARS, INC
A 501-C-3 NON PROFIT CHARITY FED ID# 59-3362703
Established in 1996, Charity Cars, Inc. is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization, and the first charity of its kind in the nation. One of our missions is to provide a free vehicle and vehicle support services to assist disadvantaged families in their transition from dependency to self-sufficiency. Additionally we engage in other activities that will uplift humanity which includes providing funds to other organizations that share the 1-800-Charity Cars vision.
The Charity Cars program provides a vehicle that has been refurbished to insure safety and reliability, and at times a license plate, the down-payment for insurance, a service warranty, and case management services to families willing to work. Accountability plays an important role in the program via the Charity Cars contract. Vehicles are registered and titled in the recipient’s name, however, Charity Cars retains a lien on each vehicle for a period of one year so the vehicle cannot be sold. At times recipients are mandated to be employed within thirty days upon the receipt of a vehicle and must remain employed throughout the lien period. Additionally, contractual obligations require recipients to maintain car insurance and to participate in follow up case studies.
Charity Cars is truly a community effort, from the donation of cars by the automobile industry and local citizens, to businesses donating tires, oil, and parts, with private foundations, government and corporations supplying additional funding support. City, county, state, and local social services agencies that are involved with unemployment refer prospective recipients. The one-year lien offers researchers the unique ability to monitor and track the statistical data necessary to measure the outcomes and success of the program.
Charity Cars’ experience with recipients is that the receipt of a vehicle has a profound effect upon their outlook on life. They seem to experience a rebirth of hope and self-esteem leading to renewed energy and ambition to succeed. Many recipients have even expressed the feeling that they have been given a second chance at life. Few programs can impact the quality of life of the disadvantaged as immediately and dramatically as Charity Cars.
Since inception, Charity Cars has enjoyed an avalanche of local and national publicity, including being featured on ABC Good Morning America, and CBS Morning News. Articles about the program have appeared in a host of publications including People Magazine, The Non-Profit Times, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and an Associated Press article that was reprinted in most major newspapers across the country. As a result of this publicity, Charity Cars has been inundated with hundreds of requests for replication emanating from more than forty U.S. States and from as far away as Canada and Guam.
In response to the tremendous need displayed, Charity Cars has recently developed and implemented its National Car Donations System (NCDS) and now has the ability to process vehicle donations from anywhere in the country. With its NCDS, Charity Cars not only has the ability to secure and process these vehicle donations; it captures information about the condition of the vehicle and has a digital photograph of it, available on the Internet! Charity Cars is now in a position to assist other communities in the task of implementing a viable, responsive, accountable and cost-effective vehicle donations program. Participating sponsors and organizations will ensure that their community utilizes its valuable donated vehicle resources in the most productive way, providing opportunities to transform its economically disadvantaged and welfare dependent into stable, self-sufficient, tax-paying citizens. The Charity Cars program offers an indispensable solution to the critical transportation dilemma confronting States grappling with welfare reform.
It is an exciting and pivotal moment in our nation’s history and the decisions made today will effect the nation and its poor for decades to come. Public Policy Professors at leading American Universities have published studies citing car ownership as a major factor in the success or failure of welfare recipients in obtaining and sustaining employment. With the Charity Cars NCDS, we now have a way of processing the vehicle donations needed to provide to these families.
The relationship of the American people with their automobiles has traditionally been a deep-rooted love affair. The automobile has been and continues to be a symbol of personal freedom and self-sufficiency. This may explain, in part, why the Charity Cars donation program has been so enthusiastically embraced by the general public and has elicited so many vehicle donations. Many donors report that they can empathize with the poor who lack a vehicle in our car dependent society, having had the experience themselves.
In closing, it is appropriate to share the dream of many of the disadvantaged citizens across America. It is not the traditional American dream of home ownership, but the simple dream to own a car to enable them to get a job to provide for themselves and their children. The dream of Charity Cars, Inc. includes this promise to every motivated recipient, “Secure full time employment that we can verify, demonstrate a desire to become self-sufficient, and we will provide you with a vehicle and the support necessary to assist you in moving from dependency to self sufficiency.”