Over the last week or so, your inbox and mailbox has been filling with requests for donations from non-profit organizations. Oxfam International, Doctors Without Borders, your local food bank and homeless shelter all depend on year-end generosity to meet their budgets.

This is the Giving Season. We give the most this time of year in part because we’re coming up on the holidays, when many religious faiths encourage charity. – though for Muslims, the giving season centers around Ramadan, in the fall.