Best for: Cleaning with a conscience, especially if you have unwanted furniture you'd like someone to schlepp away.

How they work: You post the items you want to donate, and a qualified nonprofit organization that needs your goods is put in touch with you. The nonprofit will come to your home for the pickup rather than requiring you to take your donation to it.

Where to go:
Excess Access (www.excessaccess.com) gets high marks for making do-gooding easy. After you pay a $10 listing fee for all your items — furniture, books, appliances, just about anything — the computers at Excess Access check the wish lists of participating nonprofits and notify the nearby charities that have expressed interest in the types of goods you want to donate. You then work directly with the charity to make arrangements — all Excess Access nonprofits are responsible for pickups — and the deal is done, complete with documentation so you can claim a tax deduction.

Since its inception, in 1997, Excess Access has found nonprofit homes for more than 35,000 items donated by businesses and individuals, including desks, computers, beds, chairs, clothes, books, and dishes. "We estimate that we have kept approximately 400 tons of goods out of landfills," says site founder Lisa Gautier.

If you have a computer, printer, scanner, or monitor to donate, check out both the National Cristina Foundation (www.cristina.org) and the World Computer Exchange (www.worldcomputerexchange.org).

Pros: Excess Access provides a low-hassle way to help you clean up while aiding worthy charities. You get a tax deduction and the knowledge that you've helped reduce the load on our nation's waste-disposal system.

Cons: Excess Access places more than 85 percent of the listed donations with charities, but there's a chance your item could be in the 15 percent that can't find a home. At the computer-donation sites, don't expect to unload a 10-year-old clunker.