This book examines what it means to be a compassionate, caring person in a place like Russia, which has become a country of stark income inequalities and political restrictions.Through vivid ethnography about a thriving Moscow-based network of religious and secular charitable service providers, the book explores how assistance providers’ efforts to “do the right thing” for their communities produce new modes of social justice and civic engagement. As the experiences and perspectives of the assistance workers, government officials, recipients, and supporters documented here reveal, their work and beliefs are shaped by a practical philosophy of goodness and kindness. Despite the hardships, injustices, and despair these individuals witness on a regular basis, there is a pervasive sense of optimism that human kindness will ultimately prevail over poverty, injury, and injustice. Ultimately, what connects members of this diverse group of individuals and organizations is a shared concern that caring for others is not simply either a practical matter or an idealistic, even utopian vision, but a project of faith and hope. Together care-seekers and care-givers destabilize and remake the meaning of “faith” and “faith-based” by putting into practice a vision of humane-ness and humanitarianism that transcends such boundaries between “state” and “private,” “religious” and secular.”