>>72950
Most people donate without really knowing the charity. As a rule of thumb, if it's a national charity, there's about an 80% chance it's complete and utter shit with a few exceptions such as arguably the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
>How useful would they be in a stateless society?
I'm speaking as a Greek Orthodox Christian raised in an LDS household, but NGOs have been very important to my family growing up, and were part of what kept my mother from becoming a complete state parasite when I was a kid.
Vid related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBZWeh31TIs
>but what about charitable hospitals (ie, a freak accident happens upon you and you don't have the money to cover the medical bills)?
I largely believe we'd see a return of fraternal societies with a more private industry assuming the AMA didn't rear their fugly head. The whole point of fraternal societies was it's health insurance, your doctor, and potentially even the hospital all rolled into one package. If you aren't willing to take the minimum precautions, there might be charitable organizations that don't require you to pay it forward, but chances are you'll have to pay an exponential cost for not finding an affordable plan in a truly private market (not this abortion of a medical industry we currently have). Realistically if you don't put oil in your engine/antifreeze in your radiator because you don't want to pay the upkeep costs, it's your own fault when your vehicle goes kaput on you. There is no difference in healthcare even if "human lives" may be at stake. It's the same concepts.
>Is disaster relief a good idea?
Sure, so is price gouging because it will end up getting cheap goods on location quicker.
>but what about voluntarily funded safety nets for absolute worst case scenarios?
NGOs already exist for that, especially within the church networks. The biggest change might be unemployment insurance being tied to health/life insurance.
>If you think it's a good idea to donate to such organizations, which do you think are good ones?
This is an increasingly difficult question. Two years ago I might have said the Restore Nineveh Now Foundation was a good organization if you wanted to help Christians in that region. Now I think it's a giant con artist scam. If you want a comprehensive list, look at: https://www.charitywatch.org/home
If the charity has an overhead cost of less than 20% and a Cost to Raise $100 of under $25, chances are it's not horrible. Ideally overhead should stay below 15% and Cost to Raise should stay under $15, but we don't live in an ideal world. Their full services cost money, but you can look at their "short list" of "best charities" for free. Keep in mind they rightfully list the NRA as a gun control group and don't really have much data on certain topics that generally aren't associated with charity.