Perl doesn't need donations of cash for its continues existence--it never has, and likely never will. (It has, however, relied on charity for its development, and very existence. That is, after all, what the time and effort donated by Larry and the community is)

The point of the donations to the Perl Foundation is to aggregate cash from individuals and companies to fund something that, individually, they wouldn't otherwise be able to fund. $20 from one person won't go very far, but $20 from 100 or 1000 people will go rather further. Lots of people have some spare funds, but not the time or talent, to donate to perl's development, and there's nothing wrong with them doing so. If you're going to argue that people should give their cash to charity, you should also argue that they should give hte spare time they work on perl to organizations like Habitat for Humanity, too. Time and effort is as valuable as money in many cases, after all, and what's good for the goose...

Yes, last year's grants were large, and there was some dissatisfaction in the community over them. (Though the question does ask itself "If you didn't like the destination for the money, why did you donate? And if you didn't donate, why are you complaining about what other people chose to do?")

If you don't want to do something like this, you don't ahve to. And if you have some reservations about the management of the funds, the destination for the grant, or the operation of the foundation, you're well within your rights to raise those questions with the people who can actually answer them, and not donate if you don't like the answers. If you donated, you're definitely due answers to questions like that about what's already been done, or being done.

Slagging on what's been done when you weren't involved, or on others because they choose to be, isn't cool, though.