I'm not sure that's terribly compelling evidence of anything. A post like yours is an applause light for that crowd.

Anyway, I think my main beef is the article trying to push this as "romantic". Typical mind fallacy is a thing, so maybe it's just different strokes, but I've never met a woman who would find this even marginally romantic, by any definition I'm aware of.

As for the general idea of eschewing gift exchanges in favor of donations: Love it. It just seems your trying too hard to pretend it's specifically "romantic", and that feels weird to me.