[Jesse Hamonic] and [Jess Sloss] were profiled recently in the Globe and Mail because they are starting their own charities. They were unimpressed by established non-government organizations that had rules and regulations for who could volunteer and what they could do. "The option of volunteering for a big organization and licking stamps all day is not that appealing," Sloss said. "We want to show what we can do."

"Each successive major disaster offers the humanitarian aid community lessons in how we can improve our work," [Ray Offenheiser] said. But unless those lessons are implemented by aid groups, all the hard-won best practices "will be submerged in an anarchy of altruism."

Sometimes "what a community needs differs quite greatly from my 'ideal' service," he wrote, adding that "although I may not be able to serve as a doctor or a nurse, I am more than qualified to haul bricks."