Help poor people for almost nothing!

Nicholas Kristof's column today was about www.kiva.org, a Web site that allows you to make small loans to small business owners in poor countries. It's a pretty cool idea called microfinancing, started by the dude who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Muhammad Yunus' loans were for an average of $200 each, but you can donate even less through Kiva and still help people.

You can donate as little as $25, and your donation will be combined with other people's donations to fund the person's whole project. You can browse through all the different people seeking loans and learn a little about the person and their project. Most of them are women, but the loan-seekers run the gamete from single mothers trying to open their own business to married people trying to expand or repair their business to displaced persons.

I lent $25 to a woman in Samoa who sells prepared food to people who need it for children or elderly parents. She needs $850 to buy a taro plant, coconuts and some other products and supplies for her stall in the open-air market. At the time of this post, people had contributed $500.

I lent $25 to another woman in Samoa who's seeking $875 to expand her plantation. She needs to buy fertilizer and chemicals to increase her plantation's output so she can afford to sent her four kids to school.

I'm sure Kiva is slammed with new visitors after Kristof's column, but you can still make a difference here, so that might not suck. Especially if you keep making donations after the excitement dies down from the column.

Just passing along the idea...