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Giving back is one of life’s greatest pleasures, but it can be a tough lesson to teach your young ones. Oftentimes, children and teenagers become attached to possessions for various reasons, but it’s key to reinforce the importance of donating things to charity.

Teaching the lesson
Whether it’s clothes, toys, games or books it’s important to share with your children that the belongings they no longer need will be going to other kids and families who do need them. This lesson alone will help your kids learn to value the things they do have, and that there are many families who don’t have all the fun clothes and great stuff that they do. A valuable lesson to teach and learn, is that we don’t need so much stuff when others have so little.

Set an example
Like with any great lesson in life, it’s vital to practice what you preach. It’s especially important for your kids to see you regularly removing clutter from your own dresser or closet. Many times, projects like these can seem like quite the daunting task—particularly to a child or teenager. However, setting the example shows that it’s not something you’re making them do, and that it’s something you’re actually doing yourself, too.

Don’t make it overwhelming
It’s easy for anyone to become discouraged when dealing with a large project—things can seem absolutely overwhelming. Try to help your kids so that they’re not tackling too much at once. For example, fill laundry baskets or moving or filing boxes with clutter. Then have your kids or teenager go through each basket or box one at a time. Also, try setting a timer, which will help break the work up. Sort through the boxes or baskets for 30 minutes, and then take a snack break for 10 minutes. Making the overall task less overwhelming will help keep the attention of those who get discouraged easily.

Designated donation box
Don’t allow clutter to simply move from one place to another. This is why it’s smart to have a designated area or box for donations. Anytime your child brings a piece of clothing to you and says, “This is too small now.” That piece of clothing can go directly into the donation box. Having a designated spot for items that are going to be donated helps to minimize everyday clutter, as well as organize the bigger projects. Nothing is worse than removing the clutter from your closet, only to leave the items bagged up and scattered in the hallway or just dumped in the basement.

Don’t let the clutter linger
When you’re getting rid of clutter, be sure to actually remove it from the house. Otherwise, that time and hard work will be all for naught! Besides, you want to keep your designated donation box open so that it continues to stay functional—that’s the last place you want clutter to start collecting. In order to make this simple, try registering for free donation pickups through Good Donor. It’s simple and convenient, and you select when you want a donation truck to come get your things. Please visit www.GoodDonor.org.

Good Donor 2.0 will feature:

• Donor Intelligence–allows us to increase yields in direct mail costs by identifying non-performing carrier routes and reallocating those funds to performing routes

• Identify & target–new feature allows you to distinguish between high performing zip codes and low performing zip codes as well as garnering new information on repeat donors

• Solicitation services–cthis feature provides the ability to weed out non-performing routes based on direct mail campaigns

• Roles–The purpose of this feature is so that the charity administrator can create custom roles and assign those roles to different users, as well as assign access settings. Please keep in mind that each user can be assigned only one role.

• Donations–The purpose of this feature is to allow you to search for a donor in four different ways. You can locate a donor’s record by searching for their phone number, email address, street address—or the newest feature—you can search by name.

• Calendar–The updated version of the calendar feature is a lot like the previous version—with just a few changes in functionality. The purpose of this feature is to allow you to set up pickups in certain zip codes, as well as order direct mail right through the Good Donor platform.

• Content–The purpose of this feature is to allow users with correct authorization to post announcements, both new and existing, as well as post content updates right to your own website.

• Emergency Donation Changes–The purpose of this feature is to allow users with the correct authorization to select pickups by charity, by date, by zip code and do a “Group Pickup Date Change Operation.”  The existing pickups would have their date changed to a newly selected pickup date.  You also have the option to automatically send all effected donors an email regarding the change in pickup date. This feature makes changing pickup dates a simple, two to three minute process.

• Route Creation–The route creation page has two options—the classic option and the map option—both allow you to create and map out a route. Route creation in the classic mode uses same logic as before. The new part of the route creation is in map mode—allowing the user more freedom when creating routes. The map mode of route creation is a very powerful tool and gives the user total control on how your routes are grouped.

We’ve worked so hard on these new features, and we’re excited about sharing them with our partners. For more information about Good Donor, check us out at www.gooddonor.org.

1. First things first, make a rule to immediately stop bringing things into your home or space. While this might not actually be removing clutter, this will help to reduce the new clutter, which will alleviate the problem when you finally do get the chance to start sorting through your things.
2. If number one is a bit too severe for you, try the rule of one in and two out. This means that if you bring one new object into your home, you must get rid of two others. For example, you bought a new shirt to wear to work. When you go to hang that shirt in your closet, remove two old pieces of clothing you haven’t worn in the last year.
3. Since we’re on the subject of old clothing, we suggest you go by the rule that if you haven’t worn it in the last year, you’ll probably never wear it again. It’s time for that sweater, pair of jeans or old jacket to go!
4. If you’re unsure about whether or not you’ll need something you suspect you haven’t worn in the last year, create a box of those things and store it for one year. Mark the box with the date you’re sealing it up. Chances are that you won’t even need to open the box throughout the year, which means that all the contents of the box can go
5. Donate! I find that if you donate your gently used clothing and items from around the house, you feel a lot less guilty over getting rid of things. Feel free to schedule a free donation pickup at www.GoodDonor.org!

But there are other ways to give to charity during the holidays and our friends at Charity Navigator have compiled a great list of tips to follow when looking for a charity. It can be found by clicking here.

But sometimes we all need help getting our homes organized or decluttered. Whether it is preparing for a move, a new member of the family, or just clearing out a closet, a professional organizer is there to help. Here are a few resources we recommend:

National Association of Professional Organizers

Home Organization Tools

LifeOrganizers.com

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All of our charity partners report a need for coats and jackets, particularly for kids and teens. This is an ongoing need and whatever is collected is distributed to those in need or sold for reasonable prices in the charities’ thrift stores. If you have gently used coats and jackets in all sizes, please consider scheduling your free donation pickup with Good Donor. Just go to www.gooddonor.org and you can schedule your donation pickup in just a few clicks.

Help our charities get coats and jackets to those who need them and scheduled your donation pickup today!