Cancer research, food for the needy, it seems a lot of stores are now asking not only for your business but your donations too.

It’s enough to make any shopper crazy.

“They all do it, they all ask you for something. It puts you on the spot,” said Nancy Tennant.

“Sometimes you feel a little guilty: should I give to this organization or should I not,” said Santer George.

“I don’t mind it. I mean, you’re right there anyway,” said Beth Clarke.

Stores like Randall’s say they do it as a way to help the community.

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“We are always very respectful of our customers,” said Connie Yates with Randall’s. “If they choose to do it that’s great and we scan the card, and if they don’t we say thank you for shopping at Randall’s.”

It may sound selfish to say it, but at times it can seem everybody is asking for your donation.

It turns out that in Houston, there is a lot of competition---between hospitals, the homeless, the arts---all relying on you for your money.

David Davenport runs the End Hunger Network.

They feed thousands of Houstonians every day, relying a 100 percent on donations of money and groceries. “I think a lot of times we find ourselves competing for attention.”

And the competition is made all the more fierce because he says charity giving overall in human services organizations in Houston and nationwide is down.

Things are different at the End Hunger Network.

Davenport says they’ve seen an increase in donations which he attributes to a variety of campaigns, one of which paid for their new building. “At the risk of making our big donors feel bad, all of our contributors are equally important.”

But some organizations have been the benefactors of mega-contributors.

Houston energy billionaire Dan Duncan gave the Baylor Medical School a whopping $100 million.

That’s a sum that years of those check-out donations couldn’t equal.

Fundraising consultant Anne Murphy says donations—especially the really big ones--- have become much more important in recent years as the government has cut back funding for social programs.

But keeping the money coming can be tough because Murphy says we like to think donating means finding solutions. “It takes a long term approach to solve homelessness and hunger and unemployment. And so sometimes people do get fatigued, thinking ‘why isn’t the issue getting better’.”

It all means that the food drives and check-out fundraisers are likely here to stay, competing for your kind heart.