Saw something on TV about this not long ago, quite excellent:

Kiva.org

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WorldVision.org, ChildrensHungerFund.org, MinistryWatch.com

I looked at their website last night. There's an agency in Kenya that helps people via Kiva and I wanted to see if they had any unfunded loans. When I clicked on them I got a notice saying that there has been such an overwhelming response to stories about Kiva on Oprah and other shows - plus Bill Clinton's new book - that they are running behind processing the loan applicants and are short on unfunded loans. Pretty amazing. There was an interesting story on microloans on PBS last night which was what made me take a look at the Kiva site.

PBS was where I first learned of it, too, in April: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/st...deo_index.h tml.

What a program that was - I should have posted this here sooner, although I did in a forum I've spent more time in.

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WorldVision.org, ChildrensHungerFund.org, MinistryWatch.com

FINCA and ACCION are two other really great charities specializing in microfinance: http://www.worldbanking.org & http://www.accion.org/

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---Shosh

Why aren't there any US businesses?

There are.

ACCION, linked above, makes microloans in the U.S., as does the Small Business Administration and the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (http://www.microenterpriseworks.org/), among others. If you go to www.charitynavigator.org you'll find there are many microfinance organizations active in the U.S.

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---Shosh

Speaking as a true-blue free-marketeer, this may be one of the best ideas to ever hit the Internet. It's a way for people who believe in helping others (but who think that government aid is a piss-poor way of achieving that goal) to literally put their money where their mouths are.

I've made loans via Kiva and have had very positive experiences. I only hope more people will recognize that this sort of help enables people to care for themselves, rather than relying on aid. As many religious and secular philosophers have recognized, that may be the best help that you can give someone.

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"Everything that guy just said is bull$h!t! Thank you."

-- Vincent LaGuardia Gambini

A similar idea that is all US based, which I've donated to a couple of times this month, is www.donorschoose.org. Basically, school teachers from all over the country submit proposals for projects they would like funded for their classrooms, usually for pretty small amounts (under $1000, often well under). You can fund all or part of a project, and you get an update from the teacher. You can search by state as well so you could look for projects in Pennsylvania.

In October they're having a Bloggers Challenge, where they've asked bloggers to challenge their readers to give. One of the blogs I regularly read challenged readers to donate $35,000 in October. Her readers blew away that goal by Oct. 3. She has now brought in over $90,000 from her readers and impacted more than 14,000 students.

I've been doing the same. And not only does it make me feel good, you can do it "painlessly." Because Kiva uses Paypal, whenever I receive money through Paypal (if someone is paying me back for a group gift, if I sell something on ebay, etc.), I make a new Kiva loan -- and I don't even miss the money. Try it!

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---Shosh