A few years ago a friend of mine gifted me $25 on Kiva.org.  If you’ve never heard of Kiva, I strongly encourage you to take a look when you have a chance. Their tag line is “loans that change lives” and that quite accurately is what they do.

For as little as $25, you are able to loan someone in another country a portion of a loan they are requesting in order to start, expand or continue a business. You are able to sort through close to 1000 people and your search can be broken down into gender, sector (education, health, fool, etc.) and region. There is typically a photo and a paragraph outlining how much the person needs, what is will be used for, re-payment terms/schedule and any previous loans they have requested/repaid. Read the rest of this entry