i am an strong believer in helping your own before helping others or else you end up getting into an real sticky situation where you are walk among your neighbors suffering while you have given your excess wealth to another person in other location which effects would mean that while yes they will be supported and yes you will feel better but you will have to put up with looking in despair as your own fellow country men live in hardship every single day.
If you are american i say there is absolutely no harm in giving to other americans because you are in an real ugly situation and if you dont you are going to get what some countries in other parts of the world have when they have mass poor.
I live in Australia and while i may be called racist or an evil person in which i dont care but i am against foreign aid and accepting immigrates who aren't really needed when we have 10s of thousands of homeless and even more going hungry. If they were to help those people then once thats all done sure help another country out. Because you know what, they will most likely not do the same for your country and help there own people right away so they dont end up were they were once before.
Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong
