Charities existed, in robust force, for a long time before the government stepped in and confiscated so much money from people they didn't have much left to care for others as they saw fit. We had charities all over the place competing for this money, and did produce far better results than the abysmal record of the state/federal social services, until the government stepped in and made it terribly difficult to provide such charity - on the grounds of closing the inevitable gaps which government still fails to close (and never will). The competition to provide charity is being destroyed by a government regulating competitors out of existence.

I leverage an opportunity to provide food to the poor. It's amazing how many places can't take bushels of bread for distribution thereto because of governmental regulations. In requiring better donations (vanishingly small improvements at prohibitive cost), nothing gets donated and the food all too often gets trashed.

Just change tax code to allow 1-1 deduction of charitable donations from tax liability (instead of taxable income), without limit, along with relaxing burdensome regulations on charities (realizing that something done poorly is better than nothing, and requiring something better leads to nothing).