SJS:
I don’t see what is wrong with saying that “a donation was given to kollel xyz in your honor”. We are encouraged to give tzeddaka in the zchus that something beneficial should happen.
Giving money to someone who is starving in front of you is because of ‘ein ma’avirin al hamitzvos’. I’m not 100% confident that this applies if the person is not directly in front of you. Meaning: If you know that your neighbor down the block doesn’t have food for Shabbos despite 3 jobs that he’s holding down or a kollel that is struggling on the opposite end of the blcok, I’m not sure that this is a problem of ‘ein ma’avirin’ and I think it would be halachically permissible to give the kollel your money and in my opinion more beneficial for everybody.
When you give a poor person money, you are helping one person. When you give a kollel money, you are helping everybody.
In regards to all the people you know living in difficult situations. If you had the chance to change your occupation in order to increase your income, would you? The people that choose to live a difficult life in order to learn Torah are choosing it. They can go out and work if they would just give up learning.
I wasn’t clear before, when I said ‘working from8-10 at night’.I meant going back for night seder, not actual work.