Many of my clients receive 3 or 4 requests for a donation from various charities everyday.  The mailings are designed to tug at your heartstrings.  Some of the organizations have such similar sounding names it’s hard to tell which one you want to give to and it’s almost impossible to remember which one you have already sent a donation to.  The charities also don’t care if you have already sent a donation for the current year, they keep the mailings coming.

When we are working with a client, we track charitable donations and keep a record of how much is sent to whom and when.  There are several steps involved in getting such a system set up.

We start by asking what charities are important to you.  Just because your now deceased spouse sent a yearly donation to a certain charity doesn’t mean you need to continue.  We have a nice discussion about what charities you would like to support and how much you would like your contribution to be.  Then we create a list that will be our guide through the year.

If requests come in the mail that are not on our list, we give our clients the option of either tossing the mailing – without even opening it – or, we save the requests and review all of them after a few months and decide if we want to add anything to our initial list.

If a charity telephones, we suggest a couple of options.  Our clients can either ask the charity to mail a request so they may consider it, or they can tell the charity that they have made their charitable donations for the year, thank them for calling and hang up.

Sending small donations throughout the year without keeping track is a great way to lose track of how much you are spending.  It adds up a lot quicker than most folks realize.  We tend to suggest larger donations to fewer charities.  Even if you don’t itemize your deductions on your tax return, keeping track of your donations through the year is an important budgeting tool.

So, make this an organized process and you will feel good about sending in donations rather than frustrated that you keep getting all those requests!