I recently saw a television show on PBS which featured microloans.

In case you don't know, a microloan is a loan of money so small that most banks would laugh if you tried to borrow it. Wikipedia has more...

There is a web site called http://www.Kiva.org/ that works to document legitimate small businesses that need smallish loans of money.

From their site, "You too can be a banker to the poor."

Browse their web site and locate an entrepreneur you would like to loan money to, and do so!

Check out their web site for more great details. http://www.Kiva.org/