KIVA

For those of you that want to help out people help themselves, this is a pretty good avenue to do so. http://www.kiva.org/ is a website that works with and screens Microfinance institutions around the world. They partner with these institutions to funnel micro-loans from people from around the world. You essentially go onto the website and can choose who you would like to loan to. As the parties you loan to repay the money you lent them, you can loan out that money to someone else or withdraw it.