I learned this with charities awhile back, the purpose of the activity is the activity.

If you are donating money to a cause you are not helping, you are donating money to someone and that's all. You have no idea where it goes. It doesn't make you noble it means you gave away money, that's all.

Wanna help with cancer research? Begin learning and experimenting with medicine, or go and visit/help people actively dealing with the problem. Wanna help haiti? Stop supporting the groups that enable their poverty. There isn't much you can actually do for them and thinking donating helps just distracts from the real problem.

Charity is the rich spending the poors money for them. There isn't a global glut of resources. There is a horrendous global problem with distribution where few have millions times more than they need and the many don't have enough.

This means that if you are raising money in a 5k run. You are really just going for a run. If you are buying pink products for cancer. You are just buying products. What you are doing is the extent of what you are doing. It doesn't magically ripple forward.

If you want to know that you are helping then help directly. If you don't know how then you have to accept you can't help. You don't get to pay just to assuage your guilt. If you do then you haven't really, you've only fooled yourself.