Are You Overwhelmed By Donation Requests?

While speaking to my friend and colleague Christine Lucas of the Salvation Army last month, it dawned on me that I needed to write this article.

Often I find in my client’s homes stacks of solicitations and donation requests.

These free address labels, greeting cards, and pleas for cash can be a BIG part of paper overwhelm. Especially if you haven’t created yet a “Giving plan” that can streamline the entire process.

Giving to charity is meant to be a joyful pursuit but but can often be stressful when you are bombarded daily with new decisions to make over who and how much you to give. Especially when the physical representation of those decisions shows up in piles of paper around your living space. Talk about an energy drain!

Here are 4 quick questions that will get your “Giving Plan” set up right now and greatly eliminate the challenge of keeping up with charitable donations:

Do you want to give every month, bi-annually, or once per year? Deciding in advance allows you to actually schedule this task right into your calendar. That is the key. It can also be helpful to connect this system with one you already have in place. For instance, if you already pay bills once a month you can now include charity payments within that system.

Do you know how much you want to give? Once you’ve decided how frequently you want to give you can determine how much you want to give during each “giving session”. This can really clarify how many of those solicitations you need to hang on to from month to month.

Do you know which organizations you want to give to? Usually people have organizations they’ve been donating to for a long time as well as new groups that catch their eye. Creating a tracking system can be a really helpful – especially around tax time – and is also a great place to store new groups you want to give to in the future.

Do you want to kick it up a notch? If you are someone who really wants to step up their giving then I highly recommend you check out this amazing site: http://www.boldergiving.org/giving_toolkit.php

Getting clear on your answers to these questions can go a long way to clearing out the backlog of donation requests piling up on your desk, your dining room table and your night stand. These are much easier to let go of once you have a plan in place.

Make sure you create a sacred space to store these solicitations and a scheduled time for when you will process them.

And remember that there is no need hang on to a request for too long. They will always send you another one!

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” — Mother Teresa