But the non-profit with a cause drives me beserk

From Links to Consider by Arnold Kling.  The subheading is Stephen Miran on crowding out; Jerry Muller on Conservatism; Wealth in America; David Brooks on politics and personal needs; Noah Smith on extraction economies

Speaking with Yascha Mounk, David Brooks says,

lonely and socially ill societies have the politics of recognition. Everybody's hungry to be affirmed. They're hungry for heroes who will shame and humiliate the other side. And so politics seems to offer them a moral landscape. Recognition-politik seems to offer a sense of moral action: I do good not when I sit with a widow or feed the hungry, I do good when I hate the other side or when I'm infuriated about the other side. 

I see this trend at work in non-profits. If a non-profit wants to feed the hungry, I’m fine with it. But the non-profit with a cause drives me beserk.

Indeed.  After an over-reaching Executive branch, a supine Legislative branch, and a morally and philosophically untethered academia, I think one of the primary drivers of current day extremism and alarmism are the richly funded NGOs.  Funded by the 1% and by governments.  

They bear little accountability to the public and choose strategies more focused on "having a conversation" rather than actually solving problems.  They talk of the plight of the hungry and the need to do something.  They do not actually feed the hungry.

We should be shaming people associated with feel-good NGOs while focusing praise on those NGOs which actually solve problems and make a positive difference.  We need to wring the feel-good NGOs out of the system.