For about 4 years now I have been contributing to a microloan organisation called Kiva. My Kiva page can be found
here. I try pretty hard to find people that I connect with in some fashion. For example if you look at Christine from Nigeria you'll notice that every label in her food store is facing out. Yeah, she's "type-A". One thing you should be aware of, the loans are actually already dispersed by the local microloan partner, what you are doing is backfilling the loan. It's a great way to give and retain some power over how that aid is dispersed. No expensive salaries and office furniture for the office in Toronto. It works for me.