Giving money away is illogical and not every penny is used to good effect in the nonprofit sector, which, by definition, exists to innovate to address hard problems that the market often has not and it, therefore, lacks the disciplines of the profit motive found in the for-profit sector. It still does a lot of good and most of us wouldn't want to live in a country where only government addressed all market externalities. Further, a lot of people above, including me, find a lot of joy in giving. Personally, any dollar I've ever given away has quite literally been returned to my financial bottom line, often with tremendous interest. One time in college I gave $5 to something then found a $10 bill on the way home. If I give anonymously, the effect is even greater. It sounds spooky and I have no way to prove it, but that has been my experience. Maybe the OP owes it to himself as part of his personal development quest to experiment with making a significant gift to further something he cares about and then test the results in happiness level and even personal financial return. If it fails to deliver for him, meh, he's out a few bucks and can go do something else with the rest of his money, find happiness another way, and not worry about what others think or ask him to do.