A Charity that gives to those in your own backyard..

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Another discussion that I read earlier brought to mind an interesting thought. The other discussion was about people's opinions of a well-known charitable organization which is quite popular and advertises regularly, and offers more aid to foreign countries than to its country of origin. This post isn't to bash the original post, but to satisfy my curiosity. While pondering a response, I decided to post my own discussion instead. In your opinion, are people more apt to give to charitable organizations which are in place for those in your own country, or for those abroad? I noticed that we see so many commercials for organizations who give to people in other countries, yet so little for organizations who give to those in our own backyard. Does the prevalence of these commercials mean that people are more apt to look over the ones in one's own country? There are so many people who live well below the government-determined poverty level. I am talking about people who don't have running water in their homes, who go hungry, who don't have electricity, much less an adequate way to heat their homes in the cold winters. These are people who don't own microwaves and iPods, people who don't have a favorite television show, because they don't even own a television. These are children who may have heard of Santa Claus, but wonders why he never seems to stop at their houses on Christmas. I believe in that popular saying, that charity begins at home. The thought that there are people in our own country who don't even have what most of society deems as necessities greatly saddens me. I'm definitely not posting this to push my own agenda. I am merely curious about what others think on this topic. If you make charitable donations, do you give more donations for foreign aid? If so, do you believe that it is because of the unequal ratio of foreign aid advertisements versus domestic ones? Should domestic charitable organizations put out more money for advertising so that they may get more dollars and volunteership to help their efforts? Would it be more advantageous to the organization, thus more beneficial to the recipients of their aid?