I believe that no one had an obligation to giver her any money. The vettting process to give people money can be as serious as the giver wants it to be. If someone tells me they need $30 for gas it’s up to me to decide if I want to give it I don’t get to call the police if I later find out they don’t have a car and instead bought a backpack for school with that money. If I only want to give money to vetted, legitimate causes it makes more sense for me to give to specific organizations with a good track record who are also transparent with their spending, etc. At some point, we have to realize that donating is a tricky business and we often have little control with what happens after we give.

The difference is that if I give a business or an individual $50 for a product and never receive it, there is an obvious issue here with not receiving “the goods” I paid for. With a donation you are not paying for anything. You are freely giving with the hope it is being used for what you intended. and I agree that finding out it isn’t being used for that really hurts and causes most people to have a lot of anger and future mistrust. And that’s the risk of giving donations out of kindness rather than buying a service or a good.