It's a tax dodge in the sense that it renders a huge chunk of money as untaxed. It's not a dodge in the sense that any individual gains wealth through the process.

You can't save money by charitable tax deductions unless you engage in a lot of chicanery that is in the end illegal and, if caught, subject to sanction. The charitable tax deduction does not mean: "give 10,000 to charity get taxes reduced by 10,000". If you were making 100K a year and tithed 10% or $10,000 your taxes would be reduced by the amount of tax levied on that $10,000 of income. So if your tax rate was 15% you would save $1500 in taxes- but you had to let go of $10,000 to get that $1500 in savings.

I think that an individual taxpayer's ability to avoid taxes on charitable contributions is limited to 50% of gross income.