Donate airline miles and hotel points.
If you're a corporate traveler and have thousands of banked miles, you can donate them to many charities, such as the Red Cross, UNICEF or the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Those same organizations and others accept hotel points as well. Check with your favorite charity to see what it will accept. The only downside is that you can't take a tax deduction on these gifts.

Turn time into money.
More than 50 percent of Americans volunteer their time to charity, and in many companies your time can also mean a cash donation to the organization you support. Check with your human resources director to see if your employer has such a plan.

Give strategically.
There are thousands of great causes, and you can't support all of them -- though it may seem like we try. "Sometimes people take a shotgun approach -- $50 here, $100 there, $500 somewhere else," says Dan Yates, a partner in the estate planning and business succession planning group at Bose McKinney & Evans in Indianapolis. "But if people were more strategic, maybe they could give $2,500 to one place and start a scholarship fund." Just thinking through your choices in advance -- before the solicitation letters hit your mailbox -- might mean that your gift will have a bigger impact.

Find worthy charities.
Charity Navigator.org ranks charities based on their IRS forms to show which charities are doing the most good with their money and which are eating through your donation with administrative expenses. Nine out of 10 charitable organizations spend at least 65 percent of their budgets to do good. If the charity you support spends less than that, you should consider if your donation is having the kind of impact you'd like.

You can do a background check on the organization through an Internal Revenue Service Web site. If you can't find your charity on this comprehensive list, it means either you don't have the right name of the organization or it's not eligible for tax-deductible donations -- and could possibly be a scam.

Knowing what an organization may do with your money is especially important for larger gifts. "Make sure you do the research," says D'Angelo. "Don't be afraid to call the development office and have a conversation with someone."

By taking advantage of every opportunity to leverage your donations and give wisely, you can make a difference no matter what the size of your gift. "By thinking about what you want your charitable dollars to do, you can donate to the organizations that will be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish," he says.