As a young girl in an African village, Esperanca became a victim of drive-through humanitarianism. Well-intentioned groups came and installed life-saving, safe water projects -- but went away and never monitored those projects to make sure they were working. So, Esperanca's source of clean...

An e-mailed image from Sindh, the front lines of Pakistan's flooding, unfolds across my computer screen: The haunted eyes of a mother peer into the camera as she lies under a low, crude shelter with her young daughter. The shelter looks like an upturned coffee table with a canvas tarp...

Millions of us are actively engaging, volunteering, and serving as never before. And I find it amazing how often the lives we save include our own.

Helping other people reach for a brighter day helped me not just survive, but soar, after staggering Ponzi losses. Three years ago, my...