Just throwing money at problems won’t help solve it. Just throwing donation to people who need it won’t help improve their life. You’ll still get the nice feeling of “Oh, I’ve helped someone. I’m a generous person.” But to donate effectively, even in the scale of human-to-human, requires a more concerted effort.

First, you might be giving through a charity organization (churches, NGOs, companies, etc.). In this case, it’s important to ensure that the organization uses your donation properly. Some organization will use the donation for the benefit of their leader. Some people will adopt orphans, ask donations to sustain them, and use the donation to fulfill their vices (smoking, drugs, etc.).

Another key principle is to ensure that your donation is given in such a way that promotes the development of the recipient.

If the recipient is disabled physically, mentally, or in any other way (e.g. addiction, self-victimization), the donation made must encourage him to be a self-sustaining, fully-functioning human being albeit the disability.

If the recipient already functions well enough, the donation must promote and enhance his ability to contribute to society.

Any act of giving that doesn’t promote this development of the recipient shouldn’t be considered as a charitable donation. Giving money to a prostitute is not charitable. Letting someone live on your money so that he can stroke your ego is not a donation.

Another key principle can be said using an extension of a famous quote: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him until all fish is eaten; teach a man to farm fish and you feed him for the foreseeable future.

There are probably many other principles that I missed out on. We haven’t even touched on the dynamic of organization-to-organization donations. But for now, these are probably enough.