In the summer of 2009, you could donate a car to the “Cash for Clunkers” program in the US, and receive up to $4500 dollars in exchange, depending on the quality and age of the vehicle. This was a huge incentive to participate. As an example of how generous this offer was, the car donation program offered by Canada gave you a chance to receive about $300. It is not surprising that the US government shot through three billion dollars in about two months, and had to cut the program short. It didn’t even reach the halfway point.

The goal of this program was in part to help get older and pollution spewing automobiles off the streets, but primarily it was about endeavoring to invigorate the US automobile industry. With the Wall Street crash in late 2008, and the succeeding recession, the automobile industry took a considerable blow as customers were suddenly faced with joblessness and the loss of their homes; the future looked awfully bleak indeed. As a result, bigger purchases, like getting a new car, dropped significantly as very few people were willing to take a chance on investing so much money.

The “Cash for Clunkers” plan did fire up the US auto industry, but it also helped the vehicle manufacturing industries in other regions of the world. Japanese imports saw a sizable boost as customers took the cash they gained from their car donation, and used it to buy imported cars. Production of certain American automobiles that were being produced across the border in Canada also experienced an increase with the raised demand and this produced a boost to the Canadian auto industry as well.

Those who decided to donate a car to help America’s sluggish economy probably didn’t realize just how much their actions would end up also benefiting other countries. The way the auto industry is set up globally means that so many different parts of this industry interconnect across different nations, such as companies that focus on designing specific parts, companies that are involved in shipping, and many others.

All the promotion for the “Cash for Clunkers” program stressed how those who decided to donate a car would actually be participating in a strategy to help the ailing auto industry in the United States. What was not realized at the time was that so many other countries would benefit from this system of encouraging people to donate cars as well. This is not a negative side effect at all. As stated, there is so much interconnectedness between the different nations that what is good for one tends to be good for the others.

A significant percentage of the population makes charitable donations on a regular basis. One of the means of doing so is to donate a used car if it is old and beyond repair. You can actually get a pretty good tax break for doing this. Find out more about how this works at our site on Donating Cars.