The problem we’re seeking to solve, the problem that hurts to see over and over, is quite intense grinding poverty along with other attendant problems, for example chronic conditions. It’s one thing to spot cash to a friend or a comrade or even someone begging irl so they can get smokes, or raise funds to cover someone’s birth expenses, its another to more or less try to get someone out of crisis and then help them get out of poverty - but with no boundaries or plans or often training on the side of donators and then hoping that the person asking for cash can get all that sorted presumably on their own potentially without formal help from something like outpatient mental health or irl social workers or shelters, etc. Potentially wkthout the latter because people have had plenty of bad even traumatic experiences engaging with formal services and anonymous cash really can make a small difference day to day even if it doesn’t seem to add up to an arc or momentum.

I know how you feel, I only have so much to go around. My sisters ask for money, my friend got their disability cut and I spot her quite often, I donate here… at where I work it’s easy to see how far people fall and the most I can do is help stabalize and then kick em out the door for the next round of people in crisis.