The more LOCAL the charity and the oversight of fund dispensation, the more it gets to where it is really needed.
I had a rant on that, but will sum up by saying I totally agree.
Yup. When the funds travels through fewer layers of beauracracy, fewer people are taking their cut of the funds, leaving more for the intended recipients.
Certainly local charities are often better than nationwide bureaucracies, though larger organizations are needed in some cases (e.g. a small locally-based hurricane relief organization probably wouldn't be very helpful, since it would have nothing to do when its area wasn't hit, or be totally swamped with its own problems when it was). The primary difference between charity and government welfare, though, isn't size, but rather entitlement. If there's a law that says people who sit at home on the couch all day will get $X/month, then sitting at home on the couch all day becomes a perfectly legitimate way of "earning" $X/month.