I'd say it's a difference between being good which benefits myself too and basing a life on it. If you do something just to do good, you might be doing good, but aren't good. As said, that mindset might quickly turn around if there's suddenly no benefit to being good anymore. Sure, you could argue that the motivation to do good doesn't matter as long as good is done. But, as said, it's just so very volatile and setting no example for others.

As to charities....i had consulted two very big ones here and i said fuck-them and left after some days. Having access to their complete data made me puke. Up to that point I always thought charities were cool. But just to point out one:

• 2 CEOs driving fat company-cars, on "company"-trip every week (london for a nice dinner etc)
• The cellar was full of assets of old people's inheritance. At least double-digit millions of paintings, gold, jewelry, motorbikes, cars...
• "charity" moved for the 3rd time in 2yrs, buying the third multi-million-building.
• a whole division of lawyers to threaten people
• a whole division of marketing-gurus to talk old people into leaving their inheritance to them. And boy you would be wondering how good that works.
• tons of things more, nobody gave a fuck about anyway

Yes, they also did good things with their "income". But literally >95% was for the "overhead". The only good thing was that employees are basically non-fire-able. They even keep alcoholics who rarely show up, just to avoid negative publicity. Most of the people working there don't even do anything anymore. They just spend the day surfing. Salaries were shit though. But if you got a job there, you would essentially be set for life.

The other "charity" wasn't much different, i left even earlier with a "fuck you, i won't work for you". Sure, maybe there ARE good charities, who spend >80% for the charity not the "overhead", but I don't have to time to find out, hence i never donated a single cent anymore except tiny local associations i know (and work with/for).