I had a post in the other thread too, delimiting help as charity from help as in lending a hand.
To cut a long story short: if you feed a man today, he will be hungry again tomorrow. But if you give him tools and instructions, he will grow his own food and live happily ever after.
I, for one, would incline in favour of a dynamic type help, rather than plain charity. I myself don’t stand to be a charity benefactor, both on material and especially spiritual and intelectual grownds. I prefer to be stimulated and put on the right path.
But, on the other hand, we can never do too much for the needy ones. Giving money to a begger may not be as grand as finding him a job, or paying for his school taxes, but it is never an unworthy thing to do. Unfortunately, we live in a much too real world, that sometimes takes its toll brutally. There are cases (e.g. natural catastrophes -this on a large scale, but also at the level of the individual), when every effort counts. When you are desperate, the stringent needs take place of personal pride.
As for egotistic motivations, I guess anonimity is recommended, as the Adlerian pointed out in the other thread. Inermediaries like charity fund raisers methinks are a pretty efficient buffer for any unworhy motivations like social status or image in the media.
Now, of course, it is hard to tell of each person what his true reasons were. Is Gates well-intentioned or not ? Is Donald Trump just a gimmick ? Hard to tell. Kids receiving medication or food don’t give a damn about Gates’ ethics, likewise victims of the tsunami about Trump’s motivations.
But, as while at the receiving end reasons are non-important, at the giving end they become essential. I do not venture to say that a good deed is rendered useless from an objective point of view if the one who did it had something else in mind, but, seen in a subjective manner, it is. The interiority of the good deed is eesential only for its generator.
In the end, it remains a problem between Gates and himself. Only he and God know what his mind is up to. If he values morality in any degree and has a set of clear principles, he will know if his act was or was not moral, deriving conclusions from here. If not, then screw him.