If you haven’t yet made your required minimum distribution from your IRA, you might want to consider doing so through a charitable contribution. Not only does it satisfy your required distribution obligation, but also lets you support a worthy cause… all without reporting any income. Here’s the catch, you can make one only through 2011 because the law is set to expire and you must be over the age of 70-1/2.

For those of you that qualify, the maximum gift amount is $100,000 per IRA owner. You might also be curious to know that the National Committee on Planned Giving has tracked these gifts and reported that the survey respondents received over $140 million from August 2006 through December 2007. Of approximately 8,700 reported gifts during that time frame, 500 were around $100,000 while the average gift amount was around $16,000.

Here we are at the start of November, so you’ve got two months to take advantage of this savvy way to both support the philanthropic cause of your choice and meet your minimum IRA distribution.