You are SO right.
We handed a check for $50k to our church after the mother-in-law passed. It was in the will, but the wily lady worked it out so her 2 kIds got the money, who then passed $25k each on to the church, and WE got the deduction. There’s a lot of that church-willing stuff going on out there. In this case, we were perfectly comfortable with the process because we were all involved in this particular church. (With the old Jimmy and Tammy Faye place just down the road, we were also familiar with how things like that go bad! You’re SC...so you remember Jim and Tammy Faye...)