Last night I saw a remarkable segment on “Frontline” about an internet non-profit called Kiva. Kiva allows someone with resources to go online and use their credit card to make small loans to start-up businesses in such far off places as Togo, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Uganda. Frontline visited some of the people who used as little as $500 to create fruit & vegetable stands, a brick making business and a tailor shop.

Over 50,000 people have so far given $5 million in loans and remarkably 100% of them are paid off! The business is very young (founded 2004), as are founders Matthew and Jessica Flannery. They combined their expertise in web design and finance, respectively, to create a new type of bank that is founded on humanitarian ideals.

You think about what you might spend in a week living in Los Angeles and some of the dumb purchases you could make: ($60 candles; $20 bottle of shampoo; $75 for SUV gas; $80 for a sushi dinner). Then imagine that $50 could be the start-up money for a young entrepreneur in Cambodia. How much good America can do when we put our resources in the right places.