[TeMPOraL]

Charities range from high-impact, through useful, mostly useless, to ones having good intentions but really causing damage, and at the very end of the spectrum, outright scams.

It probably doesn't take much work to ignore the latter, as long as you ignore emotional appeals and use a little bit of reason instead. But it takes some work if you want to go up the spectrum, if you want to find the more effective charities. If saving lives is your primary concern, then GiveWell does great jobs in rating charities by their effectiveness (in dollars per life saved). If you're interested in different types of social impact, then you'll likely have to do this work yourself.