I moved to St Petersburg, Russia in 1989. The place was a mess. It was a few years removed from the break up of the Soviet Union and their cancer wards were filled with people dying of leukemia, etc after Chernobyl. I went there to bring in medical aid, including medication that was tremendously effective in treating leukemia. We also brought in food and clothing aid.
What I witnessed completely broke my heart. Almost none of the food and clothing aid went to its purpose. Not even 10% of it. There was a pecking order for the vultures who would take their bounty from the containers - customs, city officials, Orthodox Church, market sellers. At the end, you had a few torn shirts and unmatched shoes. That went to the needy. The food was the same.
We had to pay tremendous fees to "Consultants" and brand all the distribution boxes for the Orthodox Church to get the medication off the dock. then, the Church SOLD it to the hospitals.
I have lived in Russia, Ukraine, Kenya and Ghana. It's the same everywhere. Foreign aid, whether sovereign or private, is a massive money laundering scam. It actually makes the lives of the actual people much worse. Those profiting from our conscience-salving donations are financially motivated to make human suffering as bad as possible to perpetuate their racket.
Red Cross, US Aid, all the pathetic billionaire foundations, 100% of all of it - scam. You can tell they are a scam, because they are still in operation. There are millions of wonderful small scale operations. 100% of large scale operations are money laundering, life destroying, human trafficking scams.
One of the companies that I used to work for was really big into not-so-subtly "soliciting" their employees to donate to the UW. The bigwigs wanted that plaque on their "I love me" wall that said 100% of their subordinates donated. I can remember all of the grand "fundraising" parties the UW would have with all of the rich donors. THAT's where the "operating costs" came into play.
One year, I actually had my boss take a percentage of my pay for the UW, without my permission or signature, because I hadn't signed up. I was furious. That was the last time UW ever got so much as a penny from me.
Taking it without your permission is grounds for a lawsuit right there. Our company tries get everyone to donate every year and "oh we match this much" and I just put 0% every time. Apparently a lot of people don't even remember to do that as every year the boss seems obligated by upper management to go around and remind everyone. I know a bunch of coworkers who stopped donating after 2020 when UW started spouting more woke crap in their annual begging presentation.
Oh, I know it was grounds for a lawsuit, but that would also have cost me my job. I don't know that it would have been worth it. It would have been David against Goliath.
I'd bet there were a bunch of Davids, though.
Most employees probably weren't as rebellious as me, lol.
One company I worked for was about as bad. One year one of the divisional VP's got called on the carpet by the CEO for annually donating a 'tawdry' sum. The VP explained that he had other charities he preferred to donate to. The upshot of it was that the CEO basically extorted a donation value that satisfied the CEO.