LEAD: As an independent film maker scrambling for contributions, Karen Goodman felt a certain kinship, she says, with the street performers in her documentary ''No Applause, Just Throw Money.''

As an independent film maker scrambling for contributions, Karen Goodman felt a certain kinship, she says, with the street performers in her documentary ''No Applause, Just Throw Money.''

The half-hour film - a pastiche of 101 clowns, magicians, xylophonists, break dancers, mimes, imitators of Michael Jackson and other New York minstrels - was shown last year at the New Directors/New Films festival at the Museum of Modern Art.

It will make its public-television debut this week (tomorrow at midnight on Channel 21, Wednesday at 8 P.M. on Channel 31 and Thursday at 9 P.M. on Channel 13) on ''P.O.V.,'' the series of independent films whose title is short for point of view.

Miss Goodman's viewpoint in ''No Applause'' is clearly approving, although the film has no narration or interviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it ''an exceptionally cheerful montage'' showing ''a New York, N.Y., of friendliness, enthusiasm, elan and humor - the way it may never, ever have been in fact, but the way it can be in the movies.'' Goings-On Within Goings-On...