During this time of financial turmoil, few of us are writing checks with the same frequency and the same number of zeroes as when we feel secure in our jobs and flush in our retirement accounts. But even if you can’t give money, that doesn’t mean you can’t still be charitable.

What Are Your Assets?

If philanthropy is a way of life, writing checks is actually a small part of your overall giving. Remember, you have great assets beyond the financial: your time, your talents, your networks, your enthusiasm, your help spreading the word—all these together can be more powerful that your charitable dollars. Read on for more ideas.

1) Conserve Resources

If you want to promote energy independence and reduce your carbon footprint, make the changes in your lifestyle that conserve resources and reduce emissions. Turn off the lights you aren’t using and finally make the switch to energy-saving bulbs. Take a shorter shower. Turn off your computer monitor when you aren’t using it. Get serious about remembering those re-usable shopping bags every time you go to the store (keep them in your car). Invest a few bucks in a reusable water bottle and finally stop buying bottled water (we fill water bottles halfway and freeze them on their side. When headed out, we fill the bottles the rest of the way with water and bring them along, the frozen part will slowly melt and keep it cold as you drink). Write family members’ names on the same cup and use them all day rather than getting a new cup every time. You already know what to do, really. It’s just a matter of deciding to do it.

2) Donate stuff

If you’re anything like me, you get so freaked out by the show Hoarders that you start looking for things you don’t really need anymore. Simplifying your life might mean adopting a few new habits. One rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used it in three years, get rid of it. Another rule some people adopt is that for every new piece of clothing you buy, you get rid of an old one. But wait, don’t throw that stuff in the trash!

Charities with thrift stores sell the items to raise cash (and sometimes with a dual purpose to employ members of their client community). Charities that help people find work can use your work-appropriate clothing. Hospitals and day care centers may welcome your stuffed animals and children’s books. That bridesmaid’s dress that you’ll never wear again could become someone’s prom dress if you donate it to a charity like The Glass Slipper Project.

3) Spend Gift Money on Charity

You were planning to give something to your nephew for his birthday anyway. Instead of sending cash, send a charitable donation in his name. Or send him a charity gift certificate to let him choose his own charity to support. In a twist to this gift theme, you might forgo your own gifts in favor of donations to your favorite charity. Charity:water had great success with its Born in September campaign, which I participated in two years ago and raised almost $1,000 toward building a well in Africa.

4) Volunteer Your Time

According to VolunteerMatch, the average value of volunteer labor is over $18/hour. Help around the office, drive to pick up donated items, become a museum docent or a classroom parent, serve in the soup kitchen, or if you really want to go for it, join the board. These volunteer activities are not only fulfilling for you, they are a lifeline for the charities you care about. And for the most part, they don’t cost you anything but your time. VolunteerMatch can help you find local opportunities to get involved.

5) Volunteer Your Talents

If you’re Internet-savvy, could you help your favorite nonprofit build a web presence or create a Twitter feed? Are you a writer who could help with articles for the next newsletter? Are you an artist or graphic designer who could design a logo? Are you a gardener who might have some extra vegetables to donate to the local food pantry ? Are you a sewer who could make quilts or blankets or knit caps to comfort babies (and their families) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit? Whatever skills and hobbies you have, there’s probably a charitable application.

6) Use Your Entertainment Budget to Join the Zoo or the Museum

Your entertainment dollars can support charity, too. Instead of going to the mall on weekends, we joined the Brookfield Zoo here in Chicago, managed by the Chicago Zoological Society. Those dollars support conservation efforts around the world and provide many weekends of entertainment for us. You could also join the museum and get unlimited access to exhibitions and reduced rates on classes. I also like to think that the significant overdue fines we are paying our library because I Love You Stinky Face was hidden under a pillow for two weeks counts as a sort of contribution.

7) Join the 29-Day Giving Challenge

If you ever needed proof that giving doesn’t have to cost money, this community will provide it. Members of the 29-Day Giving Challenge community commit to give a gift each day for 29 days and many chronicle their gives on the site. I guarantee you will be inspired by the people working to make giving and gratitude a daily habit.

8) Find a Micro-Volunteering Opportunity

“Social Actions” connects individuals with opportunities to take action in an effort to increase the scope and impact of the citizen sector." They accomplish this by aggregating 30 sites that have individual opportunties to contribute to a cause, including Donors Choose, volunteermatch, idealist.org, change.org and kiva.org. If you are looking for ideas, you can search for social actions by location, cause or keyword.

Or, be one of the growing league of Extraordinaries. This micro-volunteering site provides small, bite-sized opportunities to contribute your skills in 15 minutes at a time. Sign up to be one of their virtual volunteers and when you need a mental break, help out a charity instead of surfing YouTube.

9) Support a Local Business

According to The 3/50 Project, “for every $100 spent in locally-owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. In contrast, at national chains, only $43 remains in the community.” And when you buy a book from an online retailer instead of at a local book store, $0 stays local.

Education, the arts, health care and employment depend on a healthy local economy, local taxes (including property taxes paid by brick and mortar businesses), and local businesses and business owners giving back to their community by supporting the local high school marching band or the girl scout troup. There is such a minimal cost to us—maybe paying $3 for that tube of toothpaste at the local pharmacy instead of $2.50 at the big box store—in return for so many benefits.

10) Be the Change You Want to See in the World.

Without spending one dime, we can all make others feel welcome in our meetings and our conversations and our communities, be patient with cars slow to move after the light turns green, hold the elevator door for someone running late and let someone with only a few items go ahead of us in line. These small things are what we call being “gracious,” or “charitable.” To truly be charitable, we don’t have to give our money so much as we have to give of ourselves.