Empathy

Charity is a strange thing. 

On the one hand, you want to see the effects of your charitable donation, which means you feel the need (well, I do) to place it personally with someone, as giving produces its own joy in the giver. It's a reciprocal thing. I get more back in emotion from giving to a homeless person on the street than a faceless charity. I certainly don't expect to gain a place in heaven by my charitable donation, as I don't believe in heaven. For me, at least, it's a form of natural socialism, which I do believe in. In essence, it's empathy, and too many of us lack this attribute.

Should I have joy in giving? Should altruism be free from reciprocity?

On the other hand, giving personally means you become the arbiter of succour and it can become a competition among those deserving your largesse. That is the downside - the number of deserving people you will leave disappointed and still in dire straits.

Giving to a charity removes the personal aspect of giving, as the donation is distributed in a faceless way where you can't interact with the recipient, but it does overcome the responsibility associated with you playing God with your money. There again, the various charities are themselves in competition for your donation, and retain a large chunk for administration purposes, a lot of which goes into advertising, which is essentially a competition for your money.

The saddest thing is that in the modern world and the relatively rich West, domestic charities are needed in the first place. It's an indictment on our culture.