The big ones have become big businesses.If you donate to the big ones you have to accept they will use some of your money to keep their profiles up as they are national charities.i do hold some respect for RNLI though.
But I'd say pick a more localised charity, food bank or donate to a local church that provides assistance in the community.I'll never give to Oxfam etc because of their overheads, their large office block, Directors/Managers salaries (and their motors).
Any charity that uses any of following are guaranteed not to get one round coin off me.These include (but are not limited too) guilt trip TV adverts, mass mail-outs, unsolicited phonecalls,cold calling.
I use to volunteer for a small dog rescue they relied mostly on funding raised in the summer at car boots and fairs etc,they also/rarely had a couple of people leave money in their wills too, but they can't afford to advertise for donations like these big charities do. All the workers were volunteers and any money went straight towards vet fees and (very) occasionally the animals food, although most us feed our foster dogs out of our own wallets.
Ps If any of you philanthropists are feeling generous I'm excepting payments
