Kiva.org(found this and thought I would share)

What Is Kiva? http://www.kiva.org/about

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

A scam by the poor of the world to borrow your money in a manner that makes their lives better. Every cent you lend on Kiva is 1.7 cents you lose by not loaning conventially

:)

If these people aren't being cheated in some form by loaning, then clearly it is a scam aimed at the successful western world.

We have 16 current loans out at the moment. Just keep recycling as they're paid off and adding one now and then.

No politics. No, world saving ideology other than doing one's bit to help other people.

And, a sure cure for the "we can't do nuthin' about it" blues.

DU even has a group on the website. I'm not sure what the snarky comments from Oregone are about...

:)

I thought his/her post a rather droll piece of sarcasm aimed at the usual "what's my cut" group of lenders.

I lend to people in Nigeria, Pakistan, Togo, Moldovia, Lebanon, Peru, and some other countries.