I must admit that I'm part of a cult, and I would be remiss not to give it a plug as being that which you, too, should accept as your Lord & Savior. The organization is the Effective Altruism (EA) movement, and our disciple is Peter Singer. But brace yourself because EA's tenets are a little radical. EA says we should use numbers and logic, not emotion and compassion, to determine who and what is worthy of our concern and how is best to help.
Let's say your concern is the issue of hunger. You can buy some groceries from Safeway and give them to the homeless person you walk past on your way to work and have your heart filled with the gratitude on his face. Or you can take the cash from your would-be grocery bill, and send it to UNICEF, or another GiveWell-approved charity with the belief that the organization you pick will put the money to better use in some far-flung country you'd never consider visiting. The EA cult member would do some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and if she concluded that the latter were more effective, she'd put her heartstrings aside and do the latter.
