For the next month, the Australian Govt has offered to match every donation made to the East Africa Food Crisis Appeal over at Oxfam. That means a donation of $85, becomes $170: enough to provide ten families with hygiene kits. $160 will become $320 and is enough to supply four families of six with essential food packs for one month. I think it's a pretty awesome initiative and a great way to make your donation go further.
What I like about Good Return is that it is specifically focused on helping women in the Asia-Pacific region, and you are able to get a direct sense of who is receiving your loan and what they hope to use it for. The whole idea of micro-financing is really inspiring too, as it works on the assumption that it is important to support long-term initiatives and help enable women to start local businesses or crops of their own choosing that they then maintain and hopefully profit from. It's hard to imagine a time when there won't be a need for direct-donation programs like Oxfam, especially when it comes to emergency relief and extreme poverty, but it's good to know there are also other ways of giving that ultimately contribute to financial (and personal?) independence.
On Good Return, there is an option to donate your money without repayment, but I think one of the most effective ways to use it is to donate, have that amount repaid once the person's business is up and running, then redirect that loan to another person. That way, $50 can be re-distributed as many times as you like, helping many different women start businesses that will hopefully sustain them. It's that "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry" thing, and I think it's a great approach.
(photos from my trip to Cambodia, a couple of years ago now!)
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