Millions of people around the world live under conditions of poverty and financial vulnerability. Organizations have played a key role in the fight against poverty. The most rigorous evidence to date gives mixed evidence on the effectiveness of current poverty alleviation interventions. In this paper, I propose that the current understanding of poverty alleviation hinges on the assumption that money is fungible. In this paper, I offer a new perspective built on the research on the social value of money. I propose that organizations give meaning to the money they give to the poor and that this can have effects on their downstream outcomes. For this research, I focused on Akhuwat, Pakistan’s largest microfinance organization. Akhuwat charges zero interest on its loans and its mission is, “A poverty-free society built on the principles of compassion and equity”. In Study 1, I conducted 44 interviews with Akhuwat borrowers and key stakeholders. I also observed Akhuwat’s employees’ interactions with the borrowers in their branch offices and during the loan disbursement ceremonies. Moreover, I visited borrowers’ places of work to better situate myself in the sociocultural realities in which they were embedded. Finally, I was able to draw on archival data from Akhuwat including internal company documents and video documentaries. Drawing on this rich data, I built a theoretical model describing the role of selfless dignity and sanctity in giving meaning to the money that Akhuwat lends to its borrowers, and the process by which enable these borrowers experience positive outcomes. In Study 2, I conducted a field experiment with a sample of 300 Akhuwat borrowers to provide causal evidence for the model in Study 1. In Study 3, I conducted a multi-wave survey study on a sample of 380 Akhuwat borrowers, broadly replicating the results from Study 1 and 2, providing a test for the mechanisms. Taken together, this study highlights the importance of humanizing the process of poverty alleviation and giving meaning to money that the poor receive.