Organizing Quick Tip: Organizing Donation Requests

Do you get a truckload of charities and non-profits sending you requests for donations? They can really pile up--especially at holiday time!

This scenario may sound familiar...

You write a check to a charity. A few months later another donation request from the same charity lands in your mailbox.  You don't remember whether you've donated to them or not so you do one of two things:

• you send them more money
• you toss the envelope on your desk and now it's clutter

Today's Organizing Quick Tip will help you keep track of all of those donation requests...

Create a home for 
'donation request' envelopes. 

Follow these steps to keep those donation requests under control...

• Get a small box--approximately the size of a shoe box.

Examples of some boxes for this task:

Stockholm Photo Box from The Container Store

KASSETT Box w/Lid from IKEA

• Place the box in an area close to where the mail enters the house.

• When a donation envelope comes in the mail, place it in that box.

• Go through the box every three months to sort and purge for duplicates. I guarantee--you WILL have duplicates!

• After Thanksgiving, sort and purge the the donation envelopes one last time and decide which organization(s) you'll donate to. Spread the piles across your dining room table or sofa if you need a lot of room.

• Make your donations in December--once a year (if possible). That way you'll have no problem remembering when you sent your charitable donations. This eliminates the need to look back at a year's worth of checkbook and credit card statements to see when and who you donated to.

• If you don't already have one, create a 'tax file' for papers you'll need to collect for tax purposes.

• Place receipts for your charitable donations in the tax file.

• Empty your 'donation request' box and start over.

I recently set up this system for a client and she said it made her life so much easier in these ways:

• It organized all of her donation requests in one spot.

• It allowed her to notice when she had multiple envelopes from the same charity/non-profit.

• By doing her donations once a year, she no longer has to try and remember or look back in a check book register or credit card statement to see if she already made a donation.

This will save you time, money and brain power. Give it a try--let me know how it works for you!