I have a small business and I had the same website developer on contract since 2018. He happens to be from Ukraine. I check in on him from time to time and I sent him $600 so far to ensure he had cash flow for food while he stopped working. He was always hesitant to accept help but I insisted.  However, he now reached out to me with a direct ask: he needs protective military equipment for 4 men in his unit.

Here is his message: "Hey, thanks we will be fine with food, there are volunteers who help to supply us and we also bought a lot of long-term food. I may ask you to help with one thing. According to the latest news, russian forces are regrouping and preparing for a second attempt to take Kyiv. So we are afraid we will get into a direct firefight again. Currently, at least 4 people in my squad don't have any protective equipment. Territorial defense command says that the situation with defensive equipment is critical and they can't supply everyone. We only got weapons and need to find helmets, protective vests, backpacks, and military boots by our owns.

We found how to ship this from Poland but we need to collect a pretty big amount of money to order these.
We think about making a social media campaign to buy it, we will need around 5 thousand to buy equipment for 4 men.
Can you help with that by making a post and sharing info on your social media and with your friends? There is no other way to get this amount of money in the short term without people's help I believe since all other official sources are overloaded and cant cover the demand. Of course, we will be able to provide receipts and invoices as reports for every $ we will get."

I vouch for this person as someone that had access to sensitive information regarding my business since 2018 and has always been professional and provided great IT support.