KIVA - here is how you can be a micro-financier

The Nobel Peace prize 2006 was given to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank that he founde for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. It works by giving microcredits. But if you go the Grameen bank website you can only donate money ...

Instead if you on want to put up some money in order to provide micro loans KIVA is the choice for you. You can choose to whom and how much you are willing to lend. Typically one third world entrepreneur gets funding from many persons, thus spreading the risk for those that cough up with the money. Typically the entrepreneurs want to take a loan on 500 to 2000 USD with expected pay back within 6 months to 2 years.

Remember it is a loan.
So if you get the money back you can make them available to another micro-entrepreneur.