Minnesota resident Janet Watson has a house in Arizona that she rarely uses, so many years ago she started opening it up to friends. There was just one problem: her friends continually insisted on paying rent for their use of the house, and she continually refused to accept it. "I didn’t want to become a landlord," she says. Then Watson had an idea: instead of paying rent to her, she asked her friends to give the money to a charity of her choice.

But as more and more of her friends made use of the house to escape Minnesota’s harsh winters, the donations got more difficult to manage. So Watson established a donor advised fund at a community foundation. All the rent checks now go into the fund, "and I can take my time in deciding where I want the money to go," Watson says.

Watson is full of innovative ideas for supporting her favorite charitable causes. One of her favorites is to sign her social security checks over to charity each month. "I’m trying to get others to do this, but haven’t been successful yet — everyone looks at me like I’m nuts," she says. "But I know there are others out there who don’t need those checks."