I haven't made a charity quilt myself, but would like to. I'm thinking kids with cancer and doing my original quilt design, the "Shuriken". Shuriken kind of has a backstory---the first block I made for it was donated to be put in a quilt for someone that had a rare form of bone cancer. Right now I'm making the first full sized quilt that was originally intended for a friend of the family who had throat cancer, but he lost his battle in February so now its going to be a Christmas present for his family. So I think eventually I'll make a few charity quilts with that design.
With that being said, if I'm going to put that much thought into planning out a design for a charity quilt and give it some meaning then I'm going to put in a little thought into what kind of fabric I'm going to use. Not saying I'm going to go buy the most expensive fabric I can find, but I'm certainly not going to go get the cheapest piece of **** fabric I can find either. Its one thing to buy what you can afford and its another to purposely buy an inferior product. If your own mother was in the hospital would you send flowers that were wilted and brown? Heck no. Why should it be any different with making a charity quilt? You're not giving a quilt to an organization. You're giving a quilt to a wounded soldier who served two tours in Iraq, a little girl who lost all her hair to chemo, or the homeless man who recieves his only meals from a soup kitchen. They're already down on their luck. I don't want to kick them when they're down by making a quilt that says "Yeah, I created this quilt for charity, but didn't really give a crap how it turned out. So therefore I don't really give a crap about what you're going through". I want to create something that says "Hey, I don't know you, but I know you're going through a rough time. Here's something from the heart for comfort". So I would use the best fabric I could afford. I may or may not use a pattern that can be whipped up in a few hours, but I'd lean towards something that might take a little bit to do if it meant creating a quilt that was extra special.
Sorry for rambling and maybe sounding a bit preachy. Seems to happen on a night like this where its real late and I can't sleep.