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Since the focus of this site is personal development, I wanted to address the personal side of giving and challenge people to use their careers as their primary outlet for contribution.
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For some reason it just sounded to me like a bit of justification for *not giving as much money* because, afterall, we are all contributing to the world through our career and being a role model. I didn't think you were telling people NOT to give cash to charities, but it did emphasize other activities which are a lot less helpful to charitable causes (unless you're donating services that literally reduce cash expenses for a charity- like pro bono legal work or graphic design, etc.).
I think it depends which causes someone hopes to help. If you want to be a mentor or role model or affect local change (things within the scope of your personal power), then I do agree that anyone's career contribution may be a primary way to contribute.
But for most of the big picture causes people like to support (eradicating disease or poverty, reducing carbon footprints, increasing education and health resources, etc.) there is precious little most of us can do from a singular career, no matter how fulfilling it is (hence people work together and form broader scoped initiatives).
In your particular article the irony was that the less cash giving there is in the world, the less opportunity there is to do fulfilling work in not-for-profit careers. Sex education is a great example of the paradox here: most people who go to college and specifically train for/desire to work in sex education or related services can NOT find jobs/work in those careers. Why? Nobody funds it. You're lucky if you find a volunteer opportunity related to sex ed/sexual health but there really are scant few opportunities to make that work your life's work no matter how committed you are (sadly a lot of things that people want to devote themselves to are things that society doesn't value with a direct financial reward).
So, it depends what people want to affect in the world- sometimes you will be able to make great impact through your primary career (the one that feeds/clothes/shelters your family) and other times there is so much effectiveness/efficiency to be gained if you contribute to a charity that addresses something you personally can't affect (for whatever reason).
I look at charity as "who do I want to help? what do I want to change in the world?" versus "what is in this for me? what am I already doing that helps the world?" since the former is more congruent with my understanding of charity. The latter perspective doesn't invalidate the former or vice versa, so it's not a "this way is better for everyone" thing, but looking at charity as a self-centered activity doesn't work for me, personally. It's too easy for me to feel like I already do enough and become complacent rather than proactive to find more ways to give something back.
