Which Charities Should I Donate To?

Which Charities Should I Donate To?

Many of our clients like to donate items they no longer need and often ask for advice on where to donate. There are many good reasons to donate. Today, I’d like to discuss monetary donations, which can challenge our disorganized clients.

We often help clients process their mail and see many requests for donations in the piles—many, many requests. When there is overwhelming paperwork, it’s easy to forget when you last donated to this or that cause. The same can happen in your email inbox. So today, I’d like to offer some guidelines for deciding where and when to send a monetary donation.

We live in a generous world where worthy charities survive on patron donations. However, there can be too much of a good thing, so use these three tips to curb your donation decisions.

Donate to a Personal Cause

You want to donate to an organization that is meaningful to you, a cause that holds special significance for you and your family. These are the best places to send a monetary donation. If you are a pet lover, you should donate to the ASPCA, local animal shelter, or pet rescue. You may be education-minded and want to donate to your alma mater or a scholarship organization. You can send your monetary help to a medical support and research organization. My family started donating to the American Heart Association after my father passed from heart disease because we learned about the great work they do.

Frequency of Donating

The next decision you can make is how often you want to donate to each charity. While the mailings never slow down, you don’t have to write a check each time you receive a request. Do what works for you, but consider monthly, quarterly, or yearly donations. I suggest people donate to any charity during their birthday month. This way, you won’t forget, you’ll still have the opportunity to contribute, and (if everyone did this) organizations would have a steady stream of donations throughout the year. Also, sending one donation to a specific charity each year will help you track who and what you contribute to.

Unsubscribing to Mailing Lists

We all know that donating to almost any organization means you get on even more mailing lists. While I can’t offer you a solution to this issue, there are ways to lessen the load (in your mailbox) and reduce your junk mail. One way is to stick to your decided charities. Once you have your list of organizations where you donate, any other mailings can be immediately recycled, or you can even “return to sender” and ask them to take you off their mailing list. This way, you will receive less junk mail.

While monetary donations are a lifeline to many organizations, these three tips will help you decide who and when to contribute.

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Janet Schiesl

Janet Schiesl

Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.

She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.

Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.

Janet Schiesl

Janet Schiesl

Janet has been organizing since 2005. She is a Certified Professional Organizer and the owner of Basic Organization.

She loves using her background as a space planner to challenge her clients to look at their space differently. She leads the team in large projects and works one-on-one with clients to help the process move quickly and comfortably. Call her crazy, but she loves to work with paper, to purge what is not needed and to create filing systems that work for each individual client.

Janet is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and a Past President of the Washington DC Chapter of NAPO were she has been named Organizer of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.

12 Comments

  1. Janet Barclay on September 9, 2024 at 9:28 am

    Great tips to help us share our financial resources with the causes we most care about and minimize the requests! It’s very easy to say “yes, I’ll give $10” or some other small amount, but unless it’s an anonymous cash donation, you’re definitely going to get hit up for more, possibly for years.

    • Janet Schiesl on September 9, 2024 at 6:37 pm

      I’ve seen my generous clients get bombarded by donation requests. It’s smart of have a system for this too!

  2. Linda Samuels on September 9, 2024 at 10:01 am

    Many of my clients feel guilty about not donating, but once they do, the requests keep coming. I love your strategies for putting a time boundary on when you’ll donate (birthday month, quarterly, end of year, etc.). Your suggestion to unsubscribe to the requests is another way to manage the deluge.

    • Janet Schiesl on September 9, 2024 at 6:39 pm

      This is something people do without thinking and then they get more requests, they send in more money and never keep track of what they are donating because it’s only a few dollars. But it adds up!

  3. Diane N Quintana on September 9, 2024 at 10:17 am

    This is great information. I also have clients who receive donation requests and don’t know what to do about it – or they are reluctant to donate because they receive so many requests from the same organization.

    • Janet Schiesl on September 9, 2024 at 6:40 pm

      It gets a little crazy how many times an organization will contact a donor. It’s certainly overwhelming to some.

  4. Seana Turner on September 9, 2024 at 10:45 am

    Great idea to donate during your birthday month. I know charities long for steady income, and yet people often like giving in lump sums. We tend to do our large donation giving in December… sort of like part of our Christmas giving. That said, we do respond to specific requests during the year.

    One year, when we were traveling at the holidays, instead of bringing gifts for everyone, a family member made a donation to a charity in each person’s name to a charity that he though aligned well with their personalities and interests. I thought it was such a thoughtful gift!

    • Janet Schiesl on September 9, 2024 at 6:42 pm

      I’ve had family members do the same. It’s a nice thought to align the charity to the giver.

  5. Sabrina Quairoli on September 9, 2024 at 11:52 am

    Great tips, Janet! I recently started donating to charities through their website and found that many of them are reducing the number of flyers I get for more donations. Having a separate email just for retail and donations works well for me. I do not see them unless I want to, and I quickly delete unwanted donation emails. I like getting the emails because they let me know if they are doubling the donation. I like to take part in ones where the charity gets a boost.

  6. Janet Schiesl on September 9, 2024 at 6:44 pm

    Great tips about going through the charity website and using a separate email to get requests. I’ll add that to my list.

  7. Julie Bestry on September 10, 2024 at 3:46 pm

    I have many clients who have been overrun with charitable requests; they may get three or four a day. I had one client who had saved boxes and boxes of donation requests, but never got around to sending any of them. I persuaded her to set a budget and determine how many to whom she wanted to donate. She was adamant that she wanted to handwrite a check for each rather than put it on a credit card, so we did the following:

    * narrowed her charities for the coming year to 12 (definitely more than typical, but it was what she wanted)
    * create a schedule of giving and put the prompt letters in each monthly tab of the tickler file
    * sent a charitable donation on the day of the month corresponding to her wedding anniversary with her late husband (like, the 11th of each month)

    We then sent requests to be removed from donation lists and tossed all new requests when they came. If a new charity approached her and she wanted to give money, she had to pick a charity in the schedule to replace, either for the current year or the next year’s schedule. it was much more detailed and complex than I’d normally have advised, but it eliminated SO MANY boxes of charitable donation request mail, and probably saved her postman’s spine! 😉

    • Janet Schiesl on September 12, 2024 at 11:17 am

      It’s a lot of work to simplify your charitable giving. Glad you got it done for your client.

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