I give to people whom are in true need. I don't give to beggars unless I am throwing a handful of pocket change into the street. If beggars want money then they need to work for it, not just sit on their lazy rears. But, if I were to see a bigger with a sign and doing all those sign twirls and tricks and stuff then I would happily give the person some bills because then they are at least exerting some energy to try for something. I have never given money to a charity, but I have donated to friends or done plenty of other things to help other people out.
Last year there was this girl that my daughter was friends with and her family was going through a very difficult time. We spent thousands of dollars getting this girl clothes, school supplies, signed up for cheer leading, a phone, and basically everything that she needed. We were driving her around to all her practices and taking her out to the fair and dinner. We did so much for this girl. She was pretty much living with us and we were recommended to try to get custody of her bc her mom wouldn't work and kept getting her electricity and gas shut off. After a few months of this and the girl being really impossible to get a "thank you" out of, we started getting a little rather bummed out. One night I sternly told her that she needs to show appreciation and she got really upset called up her mom crying. We still continued to help. It got to a breaking point that she would not respond to texts and make us wait a good 20 minutes when we would pick her up to bring her to practice, so I finally stopped paying for her phone service, which we had only gotten just so we could communicate with her. Her mom got all pissed off and threatened to call the police saying that I "hacked" the phone. The mother send me MANY lengthy texts accusing us of wrong doing. I cut all ties off with them at that point.
We literally are still climbing out of the financial hole that we had put ourselves into from trying to help this girl. It was all rather heart breaking because my 3 year old absolutely loved this girl.
A few months back, my buddy Eric was in a shitty financial situation. He had made a gofundme to help him get the funds to get a new place so his daughter wouldn't be without a roof over her head. I kept sharing it and no one donated. I finally donated, and then my wife donated, and then other people, some even from GBAtemp donated as well (thank you guys). We were having a birthday party and we decided to make the party also be a fund raiser for my friend. We cooked up a bunch of our home raised chickens and made plenty of great food and had an open invatation for anyone to come by and enjoy the food without a requirement of needing to donate but would be welcomed. No one that we did not already know came to the event, but plenty more people did donate online. That day we had collected probably $150 - $200 in cash in the donation jar. Sadly, around 100 people were saying that they were going to show up, but only about 25 people actually came and we ended up wasting an awful lot of food.
We certainly go out of our way a lot to help those truly in need, but I am not going to do a damn thing for a bum that is not willing to help himself. I have been homeless multiple times, and each time I crawled out of the whole on my own by getting a job. I slept under bushes and behind dumpsters, but I always got out of it on my own. No sympathy for people whom can not put in the effort to get themselves into a better place.
Far too many charities barely put any of the donated money to the end cause.