Conducting research (or outsourcing the effort to a professional philanthropic advisor) can ensure not only that donors avoid bad investments, but that they fund the organizations that are doing the best possible work on the issues they care most about.
We wind up in a place where small but passionate groups of people can wield a disproportionate amount of influence and implement bad ideas that do not and can notwork.
Of course both made bad decisions but it starts with a failure of the NCAA in not giving adequate living expenses to players who work nearly full time, without real chances to make separate income.