Is there a real difference between private charity and government welfare from the receivers point-of-view?

I was thinking about how many Republicans seem to be coming out with stats about how Republicans give more to charity than Democrats (I know this stat is arguable) and how they say the government screws everything up. Recently, I hear a lot about how welfare teaches people to be less productive, that people on continual public asssistance will never be productive, because they work the system, and the system is all they know.

So, I was wondering if people get help from private citizens through churches, home grown programs, or even begging is the end result any different for the person receiving the help than if it came from public programs? Does it really matter psychologically where the help is coming from? Does it affect whether the person will become productive or not on their own?

Let’s leave out the severely mentally ill for the purpose of this conversation. Let’s assume all of the people we are talking about are mentally and physically able to hold down some sort of job.