I suspect that many of you who read this blog are in a position to do some amount of charitable giving. So, this month, I’m taking a break from writing about all those things that help us earn money and instead writing about giving it away.

I won’t discuss here whether to give money away. If that is something you feel motivated and able to do, read on. If not, come back to this post when your situation changes. Instead, I want to talk about how I structure my donations in order to help you make useful, clear-headed choices about your own charitable giving. I hope this will be useful whether your budget for donations is $50 or $50,000.

When I started thinking more seriously about giving away money, I found myself swimming in questions. How much money could I afford to give? What causes did I want to focus on? Which specific charities would be most effective? Should I give more money now or spread out my donations monthly? How could I collaborate with my wife on all these details so we both felt like we had a say? I spent a while feeling intimidated and stuck. I would sometimes donate lump sums in anxious response to the news, but did no planning or intentional giving.

Each of the questions I had was approachable individually. My overwhelm was due to the feeling that I needed to somehow come up with answers all at once. I finally built a structure for taking on one concern at a time, and that is what allowed me to unblock myself.

The rest of this post is that structure, in the form of a step-by-step process and a spreadsheet. I strongly recommend picking a particular week in which to go through the full process (including coordinating with any other financial decisionmakers in your family). I personally tie this week to the Jewish New Year, which helps me remember to revisit my donations every year and gives me a way to connect to the cultural value of repair of the world in a concrete way.

Step 0: The Spreadsheet

If you’d like to work through this process using my spreadsheet, make a copy of the sheet and share it with anyone else in your family who will participate in your donation planning. I recommend not editing the Overall Summary and Tax Summary tabs, or any column in the Recurring Charitable Contributions tab under the red header.

If you would prefer not to use my spreadsheet but still want to go through these steps, decide how you will keep track of your giving before you continue.

Step 1: Budget

Decide how much money you will spend on charitable giving over the next year. You can take into account your income, your budget, your tax situation, and your values. Most charities strongly prefer monthly gifts because it gives them predictability of budget, so you will be dividing this annual amount across the next 12 months.

The fuzzy guideline I use when setting my budget is give enough that it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

For all the rest of the steps, you’ll think of this budget as a finalized decision. That means you can put away the worries about whether it’s the right amount and focus instead on the impact you’ll have with the money you are going to give.

Step 2: Themes and Impact Style

There are so many issues you might care about, and so many kinds of charities working on all those issues. Take some time to think about which set of causes you care about the most right now. This is a great way to get older children involved in your giving decisions; they don’t need to pick out the specific charity, but can help inform what issues your family will focus on most.

In addition to cause, I recommend thinking about scope of impact. Maybe you want to focus more on local change, or maybe you want to chip in toward national or even international efforts. You may prefer to give to individuals in your community or to established organizations.

Finally, consider the impact style of the charities you may give to. I think of this as harm reduction vs policy change. For example, a food bank reduces the harm of food insecurity, while an organization lobbying for improvements to SNAP benefits is working toward policy change.

Remember that there is no one right answer to these questions, and that you can always change your focus in the future. You can decide to have a narrow focus or to spread out your donations with a mix of many themes and impact styles. The goal of this process is to take some time to think about your values before deciding on individual charities or amounts.

Step 3: Specific Organizations

Now that you have your themes set out, it’s time to research specific recipients. This is a great place to divide up work between members of your household. My wife and I each pick a couple themes to focus on, research a few organizations, and present our findings to each other. We use websites like Charity Navigator and GuideStar in addition to reading news articles, blog posts, and website copy for each group.

If you are using the spreadsheet: Add each organization to a row, along with the most closely related theme. You can always remove rows later if you ultimately decide not to donate.

Step 4: Distribute Money

Now you have a list of organizations and a budget. It’s time to decide how much to give to each group. There is no right way to do this, and it may feel like some of your decisions are just random. That’s okay. Your job during this phase is to hit your already-decided budget in a way that feels reasonably aligned with your values.

While you can absolutely make or reserve money for one-time contributions as part of this step, I encourage you to set up recurring monthly payments wherever possible. This gives you and the beneficiary more predictability. Follow each recipient’s instructions to set up your donations.

If you are using the spreadsheet: Put tentative amounts into the sheet and modify until you hit your budget, using the Overall Summary tab to track your total. Then, once you have decided on amounts and set up payments, you can set “Start Date” to the current day and use the “Notes” column to track confirmation numbers or other payment details.

This process has been instrumental in my own giving, but I am far from an expert. I would love to hear about any strategies you use to structure your giving, assess charities, or set your donation budget. Please do comment on this post with any thoughts or ideas!