That's actually exactly why they sit outside the grocery stores - they'd much prefer to get cash from people to spend as needed but a lot of the people who end up donating cans would never have donated cash.

In our area, the charities actually ask people to put random foodstuffs in a certain bag and leave it on the porch for volunteers to pick up later.

If they didn't want that food and would prefer money, it'd be a lot easier to ask for that.

That leads me to think that they do want the food, but also that you're probably correct in thinking that people aren't likely to donate at all if it's not food directly.

> Best-by and sell-by dates are not a food safety date.

Exactly this. Properly canned (or otherwise preserved via cooking in a sealed vessel) food effectively has no end date, so long as the seal remains intact. It will taste largely the same (barring leached minerals or otherwise from the vessel), unlike frozen food.

> specifically takes and distributed safely edible but past best-by or sell-by date food

It'd be interesting to know how they make that determination. The food bank around here tells people not to donate expired items (and has once or twice shared photos of the truly ancient stuff people sometimes donate) but it just occurred to me that I don't know whether they automatically throw that stuff away, evaluate everything individually, or what.

Every "expanding" food bank is going to be significantly better at efficiently converting capital into food than you are, so donating cans to those kinds of food banks is simply throwing money away. Just give them cash. Give them less cash if you're so worried about misuse of proceeds.