Kiva is a website for microfinancing coupled with crowdfunding. While the borrower (usually in some 3rd world country, but potentially anyone is allowed) still lends his/her microcredit from a bank in their home country, you can share the credit burden with that bank (and multiple other loaners), usually at portions of 25$.
The awesome part: Since you're technically a "shareholder" of that debt, you get the 25$ back after the borrower has paid it off - and you're free to reinvest again. It's like donating, only you get to donate over and over again. And the risk isn't that great - at best, you get your money back after a year or two, and in the worst case, you have lost 25 bucks - enough to annoy you, but not enough to hurt you even if you aren't exactly rich. (and that probability isn't high - microfinancers usually have really good repayment rates, way past 95 %)
It's totally satisfying - you lend out your money, have a good chance to get it back AND you help some other person better their life. Try it, if you haven't yet.
The interesting part comes to you after browsing those extensive crowds of families and budding entrepreneurs. Each loan comes with a little blurb telling you who this person/group is, why they're borrowing that money, and a photo of them at home or their workplace. People want to buy seeds for the next crop (or rent labor to work the land), buying goods to refine and/or to sell (such as clothes, in bulk, or wood to work with), or pay medical expenses, connect their houses to electricity, or very often, just a damn toilet that isn't the same place you get your drinking water out of.
Browse enough of those people, and you start to lower your expectations. After about an hour, I came across Shufaa, a Kenyan woman wanting to buy clothes for resale. Her blurb tells me about her:
After all those other people wanting to exchange candles to solar led lights and upgrading their shitbuckets to latrines, I'm all "damn girl. Electricity AND running water - you got it MADE.".
"Shufaa is a married mother of four children, all of whom attend school. She lives in her own house that has electricity and piped water. Her greatest monthly expense is food."
...And then I realize: I'm sitting at my computer in my 60 m² apartment in Germany, sipping my espresso latte, and feeling suddenly very, very fucking privileged to be a white male in a developed country.
Does this remind us all that the world is an awful, rotten place? Hell yes. But even without leaving my privilege bubble, I can make this sucky world a better place - one tiny step at a time.
