Girl Scout cookies. Chocolate bars sold to support class trips. Wrapping paper, bumper stickers and raffle tickets sold to raise funds for school sports and other programs. Ribbons for breast-cancer awareness. Daffodils for the American Cancer Society. Donations for each mile a person runs, walks or swims in pursuit of cures for various diseases.

All of these pull not only at the heartstrings but the purse strings, too. And when co-workers, neighbors or their children arrive at your desk or knock on your door with fund-raising requests, you want to be generous to all of them. You may remember how you rose to the occasion as a kid to sell your own Girl Scout cookies. You may applaud how children are learning to present themselves and raise money for their activities. You may even wish to raise funds yourself from time to time by selling items to co-workers, friends and neighbors.

But when the budget is tight, the fact is it can be a challenge to keep on giving.

The last thing you want to do is seem like a Scrooge, but when you’re pinching pennies to feed your family, it’s hard to say yes to turning those pennies over to the cause of the moment. That’s when you need some strategies for facing donation fatigue.

First, think about how much money you can afford to give and create a budget for giving. Think, too, about alternatives that you might offer, such as the gift of your time.

The hardest part of giving more modestly comes in facing someone making the request. First of all there is the problem of disappointing them. And then there is embarrassment of being unable to give generously, too. At home, you cannot predict when a neighborhood child will come calling with cookies or other items for sale. Save your money for these occasions, so you can support not only the cause but the aplomb of the child.

If your workplace is one in which children are allowed to troop through selling things, or if it is a place where co-workers personally ask you for donations, talk with your human resources manager and suggest that causes be touted through e-mail or signage in the coffee room, where employees can donate or not, without the pressure of a personal sales pitch.

When you feel really keenly about a cause, consider working for it yourself. For instance, instead of feeling unhappy about giving too little or not at all to a walk for hunger, consider joining the walkers and to raise some money yourself. That’s a win-win situation for your budget and for the charitable cause.