If you're in a sharing mood this tax season, some Champaign County charities hope you send a piece of your state income tax refund their way.

Or, alternatively, add a few dollars to your tax payment for their cause.

The state's network of food banks and the six Illinois Crisis Nursery agencies are included for the first time as eligible charities for taxpayer checkoff donations.

Altogether, 10 causes are listed on the Schedule G tax form, "Voluntary Charitable Donations." Typically they vie for more than $1 million in taxpayer donations, though the amount has dropped in recent years.

Jim Hires, executive director of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank, isn't sure what to expect this first year.

"We may get an unbelievable amount, we may get very little," he said this week.

The Champaign County Crisis Nursery stands to benefit from the new Crisis Nursery Fund, which will be divided evenly among the six nurseries across Illinois, Executive Director Stephanie Record said. The nurseries help children at risk of abuse or neglect because of family crises.

Legislators approved both the Crisis Nursery Fund and Hunger Relief as eligible checkoffs last year. The primary House sponsor, Democratic state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson of Champaign, said that checkoffs make it easy for people to donate and that hunger is a pressing issue during this recession.

"I'm such a believer in the food bank. Any help we can give them is good," she said.

The state association of food banks, called Feeding Illinois, lobbied for the Hunger Relief Fund. The money will go to the state organization, which will purchase food and distribute it to food banks across the state based on need and a region's poverty rate, Hires said.

"I think it's a validation on the part of the Legislature that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with, especially in these times," Hires said.

Other choices on this year's list include: Wildlife Preservation, Child Abuse Prevention, Alzheimer's Disease Research, Assistance to the Homeless, Military Family Relief, Illinois Veterans' Home, Diabetes Research, and Penny Severns Breast, Cervical, and Ovarian Cancer Research.

The homeless fund is used for grants to individual shelters for purchases or renovations, said John Sullivan, executive director of Champaign's Center for Women in Transition. The women's center and the TIMES Center for homeless men each receive a few thousand dollars a year from the fund, he said.

Charities must raise at least $100,000 a year to stay on the list, which is limited to 15 funds.

The Crisis Nursery is trying to get the word out to its supporters through an e-mail blitz, Facebook, fliers and billboards, Record said.

"Since we're new to the list, we want to make sure people know about us," she said. "A lot of people we've spoken to weren't even aware that was an option, to give on their tax return. Our main goal is to get to the $100,000 level."

The most successful checkoffs are charities that work hard on outreach, such as veterans' groups, said Susan Hofer, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Revenue.

Those no longer on the list include funds for hemophilia treatment, the U.S. Olympics and a memorial to women in the military. The Healthy Smiles Fund, established last year to improve access to dental care in underserved areas, raised just a little over $21,000 and is not on the 2009 list.

"Unfortunately, we were not able to make the cutoff," said Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Amounts donated to the 10 funds on the list in 2009 (for tax year 2008) ranged from $21,000 to $192,000.

The checkoffs started on 1983 tax forms as a way for people to contribute easily to charities. Legislators have occasionally tried to limit the number of checkoffs, but with no success. The tax code now includes 45 potential charities.

Hofer said the program is manageable because the list is limited to 15, targeting "the most viable charities."

Just under 100,000 taxpayers – out of more than 6 million filed – used the checkoff in 2009, donating an average of about $13 each, based on data supplied by the Department of Revenue.

A little more than $1.3 million was donated in 2009 (for tax year 2008). That compares to $1.55 million in 2008, $1.7 million in 2007 and $1.8 million in 2006.

Hofer said the drop is similar to what charities have experienced overall following the credit crisis and current recession.

"The entire economic world changed in October of 2008. Even though people may still have had their jobs, and may still have been earning the same amount of money, their retirement funds had dropped, their home values had dropped, their feeling of security in their job had changed," Hofer said.

Many charities are looking for more stable sources of money, given the state's precarious financial situation.

The Crisis Nursery tries not to rely too heavily on state funding, which makes up about 16 percent of its overall $775,756 budget, Record said.

Still, at one point it stood to lose about $150,000 in state funding this year, and some nurseries were in danger of closing their doors, she said. That didn't happen, but the picture for fiscal 2010-11 is uncertain at best.

If all goes well, the nursery would receive its first payment from the taxpayer checkoff in July, just as the new fiscal year starts.

"It'll come at the right time," she said.