Got something you think someone would want and planning to donate it to charity? Try the Friday night curb test:
– as soon as you get home from work Friday night, neatly set the item out by itself on the curb with a sign on it saying "FREE".
– if you live in New York City, take a picture of it (e.g. with your mobile phone) and mail it to street at garbagescout dot com. It will appear in a nice mashup map of interesting curbside finds.
– check out the window periodically and see if it's gone; if so, throw away the discarded sign. Voila!
– if it's still there by midday Saturday, then take it away and donate it to charity.
Note: curbside sharing not recommended during rainstorms or blizzards and don't put out whole boxes of stuff which get pawed through and scattered around the area making your neighbors hate you. This is best for the discrete item, e.g. "dresser", "1960's stereo", "big stewpot", "pair of shoes". Visit Garbage Scout for good examples.
Learn other methods of sharing at Freecycle.org.
Discardia 
My building has a “free spot” on the first floor window sill in the staircase. People leave books, dishes and other little things out there for our nieghbors to take. I’ve picked up a couple of books from it, traded up my silverware holder and grabbed a few kitchen tools. It’s a nice thing to start, since you can give away one thing at a time, instead of waiting until you have a load for charity. You know your neighbors, so you [sorta] know where everything’s been… The only rule is that if you leave something and it stays for too long, you have to put it outside.
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Our building has a place like that near the door for the basement. I usually put stuff there if the tax credit value of the items isn’t worth the hernia I would get dragging said items to the thrift shop, eg., old hard-cover novels, my classic rock vinyl albums, etc. Also magazines.
There was one hard-cover I put out that showed up again a few weeks later, only with the dust jacket missing. So someone I may never know enjoyed my old book, and its cover.
I’ve also found great reading material for free that way.
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