An evolved but brief journey to philanthropy. If you have wealth and wish to help people, do so. If you don’t have wealth and wish to help people, join an institution that shares your goals. If no such institution exists, form one, create formal structure and use this to raise funds. If this is too much work, then find something else to do.

for the Not Wealthy, those things themselves aren't prohibitive, it's doing those things while simultaneously bringing in enough income to not starve to death (nevermind getting to the point of _raising_ funds) that's the tricky part. in my experience, trying to to join philanthropic institutions is rough and demoralizing (no call back, unpaid internships only, etc)