Here is an interesting charitable endeavor:
Kiva
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 in the developing world.
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.
Great Investment Ideas Benefit ALL of Humanity
Thanks for being. Someday, millions upon millions of people will come to understand that living in a closed-loop, selfish world of "I-me-mine!" assumptions is culturally a dead end street.
What if every American with an IRA -account were smart enough to roll it over into an offshore 'self-directed IRA,' and used this property as a human preserve, a sensible slow-growth approach toward maintaining value, not in fixed assets, like silver and gold, but in priceless assets for their progeny? THAT would be great, and not just for those who discover KIVA.
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