A one off donation to charity is all well and good, but it's the repeated donations that help more than anything. As any business will tell you, if you have a guaranteed income you can budget far better than if you get the odd one-off big payment here and there. It's why the only charity I donate to gets a monthly sum, rather than a token bit here or there from me.
It's different for things like the Poppy Appeal, who do an annual fundraiser and kinda know when all their cash is coming in. For all the spectacular sums of money that ALS/MND charities are getting, they will have no plans for this and we may not get as much benefit out of it as you would think. Medical research is frightfully expensive, and IMHO a lot of this money could be better spent on palliative care for those sadly afflicted.