[MaiaIva]

“Pay yourself first” is 100% a way to a sustainable giving. The moment you start sacrificing your basic needs to help others, you are on the path to become the next one needing help, imo. Curious about your “good charity” indicators: do you take a close look at their financials? Read their impact stories? Or is it more intuitive, based on your experience?

[JohnFen]

I don't do a deep dive into financials, no. I focus more on the smaller operations that don't have large budgets or complex finances, so I tend to go by reputation, "smell", and my personal knowledge of the people running the operation. Part of the reason why I want to see them providing tangible services (and why I don't want to see a lot of money being spent on fundraising) is so that I can see that at least a significant amount of the money is going toward their purpose.

I'm talking things like free clinics, food banks, etc.

There's certainly a nonzero chance that some of my donations are wasted (in my view), but I've chosen not to worry a huge deal about that. If I spent too much energy on that sort of thing, I wouldn't donate at all.