I know many libertarians here will not like this comment, and it is slightly OT, but I don't like charity. Charity is like weather, very unreliable and you don't want modern economy rely on it (and often when needed, there is actually too little charity). I think every society needs proper social assistance/redistribution mechanisms; unfortunately, this is difficult (if not impossible) to do without "coercion" (but I don't consider taxes to be a bad thing).

In addition, I consider charity to be very condescending. It makes recipient dependent, in terms of power relations, on donor. Many wealthy people use charity to rationalize their empire building, and that's a symptom of this power dynamics.

For example, I do find Linus Torvalds lot more charitable than Bill Gates. Gates took money from one group of people (having them buy Windows) and used this power to decide to give it to other group of people based on what he thought is important. Torvalds just left the money on the table, so the society could decide what to do with them. Even though I agree that Gates' choices what to do with money are really good, Torvalds did pretty much the same without the power grab. In other words, we are led to believe that Gates' actions are better just because we can measure them (in terms of money spent), but it's not obvious that is really the case.

(Just to quickly clarify - I am not against transfer of consumption pie to people like Gates, I am against transfer of power they have in the society. Money can designate both, unfortunately.)

Ultimately, I think charity is just a device for people to believe they are better than they really are. If you absolutely have to do it, do it anonymously without much ceremony, don't rationalize any power grabs with it (for example, don't avoid paying taxes just in order to put the money to charity), and let the recipient decide on their own what they want to do with the money.

I guess the disagreements will come down to whether or not you trust the society to do the right thing. But if you don't trust the society, why would you want to be charitable at all?

Although this should be read with caution. The above only makes sense in reasonably democratic societies. Then building a charity, with someone's name attached, is a non-transparent power grab from what should be a transparent democratic process. But in undemocratic society, there is really no difference, and it may as well be better for a different wealthy individual to decide. So in a sense the above is a first-world problem; charity is, in my view, simply inferior technology compared to democratic consensus.

Finally (libertarians listen!), I think there are technology solutions that could help to avoid relying on government only, but they are not much pursued.