This is a nitpick and Nick probably doesn't actually understand this anyway, but looking at just the money, giving money to charity even with the deduction on your taxable revenues still costs more than not giving to charity.
Yes, but, as you say, that's "looking at just the money." There's also less tangible aspects to making such donations. Such as good PR. Corporations, for example, frequently view charitable donations as a form of advertising, and the charity will often be more than happy to put their corporate logo on crap.
In the case of the paintings, Nick could have paid a lot of money at the charity auction, declared the fair market value of the paintings well below what he paid (for the write-off), and THEN also used such paintings as decorative backdrop in his for-profit show and to brag how well off and "charitable" he is. The last part of that being the less tangible, but still very real, benefit he received from buying them.
Alternatively, he could have also claimed them as business expenses. That has been discussed in this thread at some length in the past. He loves claiming business expenses.
My point is this: Nick is all about looking good. I do not believe he gives "charity" without some expectation of getting something in return. Which basically means it's
not charity.
The $1,000 to the Jamaican "dancer" might have happened, and I think a lot of people here
want it to have happened, because the idea of him being scammed is hilarious.
HOWEVER, it's also possible he made the whole story up out of whole cloth. To make him following the two bulls seem less worthy of mockery. Maybe even get him some asspats for being so charitable to this woman.
A good alternate theory here is he wanted to appeal to Kalea's own sense of charity, and the fact she is female (and would therefore maybe be more naturally sympathetic to a woman who is pregnant and experiencing hardship). So he cooked up this cockamamie story to try and emotionally manipulate her back onto Team Rekieta. He pulled the same shit with Perception Check where he tried to claim (falsely) he was being railroaded like Vic. Knowing full well PC's admiration and support of Vic.
Except it didn't work in either case, and the Jamaica story he's now going with is just causing people to laugh even harder. Nick is a dumbass.