If you’re looking to use your time to help those in need or the world around you, you have three options: The first is to earn more money and give more money away. The second is to volunteer your time. The third is to embark on a career change and work for a non-profit.

If you decide to volunteer your time or work for a non-profit, the next question is how you choose between competing charitable opportunities. As you weigh your options, consider the following five criteria:

1. Passion (What’s Important to You?)

What do you really care about: medical research, caring for the poor, supporting the arts, battling climate change, or something else entirely?

Often, our personal experience drives our charitable passions. For example, if your family has suffered from fires in the western U.S., you might feel passionate about climate change. If you know someone battling cancer—or are a cancer survivor yourself—you might want to support medical research.

Additionally, your beliefs might drive your passions. You might believe that no American should go hungry and feel passionate about supporting your local food bank. You might worry about the opportunity gap between rich and poor kids and feel passionate about helping children from poor families go to college without incurring substantial debt.

Many individuals struggle with the passion question. If this describes you, we suggest you get involved with a local charity that you care about, even if not passionately. Passion comes from personal experience and connection. The more involved you become, the more passionate you are likely to be.

2. Talent & Skills (What Do You Enjoy Doing?)

Sometimes, charitable volunteer opportunities are relegated to menial labor. You may care passionately about animals, but you may not be that excited about volunteering to clean out animal cages at the local humane society. Volunteering opportunities are much more satisfying when you have the chance to do what you love.

What do you enjoy doing? What are you good at doing? Look for opportunities that allow you to use those skills and talents. If you are an architect, maybe you can volunteer with a non-profit that builds low-cost housing. If you are a medical professional, maybe you can volunteer at a no-cost clinic. If you love cooking, maybe you can help prepare meals at a homeless shelter. If you love working with kids, maybe you can work with children as a tutor or big brother/big sister.

People who are looking to volunteer a few hours each week may care less about doing what they enjoy. Supporting their passion and making an impact may be enough. For individuals who are looking to make a career change, it is vital they find a job that uses their skills and talents and gives them an opportunity to do what they enjoy. It would be very difficult to move to a lower paying job at a non-profit doing work that doesn’t use your talents and skills and that you don’t enjoy.

3. Impact (What Kind of Difference Do You Want to Make?)

We volunteer our time to make a positive difference. Different opportunities offer different impacts. Believing you are making a difference—that your efforts matter—is critical. When we feel our efforts matter, we are motivated to continue or even expand our efforts. When we feel our efforts are ineffectual, we quit.

Consider what type of impact is meaningful to you. Some of us are looking for the desire to move the ball forward on a big issue such as world hunger or climate change. Although our contribution may be small, we feel good that we’re working on an issue that will impact many people. Others may prefer a more personal connection. Instead of working on world hunger, they prefer to work at a local homeless shelter helping individuals find employment and housing.

What type of impact are you looking to make? There is no right or wrong answer to this question—only the right answer for you.

4. Getting Outside Your Bubble (Do You Want to Achieve Personal Growth?)

When you volunteer, you often have a chance to work in the trenches. You may feel this is not the highest and best use of your skills and talents, and that may be true. It does, however, offer you the chance to get outside your bubble.

It may connect you with others who live very different lives from your own, and that experience is likely to increase your empathy and understanding. You may get the chance to sample new activities you haven’t done before, such as cooking at a homeless shelter, working with young children to improve their reading, or getting your hands dirty and building a home for the homeless. You may find a new interest or even a passion.

5. Cost (What Are You Giving Up?)

All choices have a cost. Every volunteering opportunity or career change inevitably requires some trade-offs. Carefully consider those costs. Can you live with the price? Be honest with yourself. It is not helpful to anyone if you end up quitting after a short period of time because the costs were too great for you to bear.

If you are thinking of changing careers, consider how the potential drop in income will impact your daily living. Often, non-profits run on very tight budgets. What type of administrative help will you have? What tasks will you have to do for yourself that you used to delegate to someone else? What are the expected hours? Is the team so understaffed that everyone is working over 60 hours a week?

If you are considering a volunteer opportunity, where will you find the time? What are you currently doing with that time? How will those things get done going forward? For example, if you are considering volunteering two nights each week after work, think about what you have been doing with that time. Maybe you have just been relaxing and watching TV and think volunteering is a better use of your time. That may be true, and it may not. Time to rest and relax helps us feel rejuvenated. Without that time, we can become tired, irritable and less effective. Before you take on this new volunteering commitment, be honest with yourself about your needs, your desires, and what you are giving up.

Next Steps

There are enormous benefits to helping others. They include giving you a sense of purpose, creating a sense of belonging, and helping you keep things in perspective. Figuring out how you want to use your time to help others can be challenging. Some of us prefer not to volunteer. We would rather work hard at our job, earn a good living, and make meaningful charitable contributions. Others like the idea of being hands-on and prefer to volunteer at a non-profit that reflects their values. For some, they’d prefer to work full-time for a non-profit.

Once you decide how you want to help, the next question is finding the right opportunity for you. As you consider your options, keep in mind your passions, what you enjoy doing, the impact you want to make, how you might grow, and what you will give up as you make this transition. Helping others is a laudable goal. Figuring out the right way to do it makes its a sustainable one as well.

We have advisors specializing in Behavioral Wealth Management that can help you create a framework to consider these complex questions and find solutions that work with your unique situation, talents, and passions.