DEVELOPMENTSPACE UPDATE:

�         New Services offered by DevelopmentSpace

�         A DevelopmentSpace Success Story

�         Red Herring article:  DevelopmentSpace as an "Ebay for Development" by Peter Schwartz.

�         Three featured  projects

www.developmentspace.com

• Corporate Services

DevelopmentSpace is now ready to give corporations and their employees the ability to make a positive social investment in the communities within their countries of operations.  Corporate GlobalGiving is our new service that addresses both corporate and employee giving needs while ensuring that the corporation receives the recognition it deserves where and when it gets involved.  To contact us about this service, please write to globalgiving@developmentspace.com 

• Competitions

DevelopmentSpace now organizes competitions to receive grant proposals from all over the world.  DevelopmentSpace gives foundations or other donor organization global reach to find the best projects.  Our extensive entry into the developing world provides varied proposals tailored to any needs.  Please email competitions@developmentspace.com for details on customizing a competition on-line

• Partnerships:

DevelopmentSpace now offers partnership possibilities for NGOs or foundations.   The yearly subscription provides many services to partners, including  individualized space within the portal,  the ability to organize virtual competitions and  regular discounts.   For more information, please contact partners@developmentspace.com

• Advisors

DevelopmentSpace is looking for volunteers to advise project leaders on writing a business plan.  If you would like to contribute your business knowledge or field experience and advise a social entrepreneur, please contact us at advisors@developmentspace.com. 

• Donate Books

DevelopmentSpace

Suite 1030

1828 L Street, NW

Washington , DC 20036

As a means of spreading the word about DevelopmentSpace, we are gathering books that highlight the cultures of people and places we don�t encounter everyday.  We are taking these books, and �freeing� them � giving them to people who want to learn life beyond their own neighborhood. Readers can go to the forums section of DevelopmentSpace and share their reactions to the book � then pass it on to someone else.  In the end, every person who gets their hands on a book will be able to go to DevelopmentSpace and see where it�s been, and who�s been reading it.

• Watch List

To be able to track your favorite projects, and to access them easily, a watch list is now available on every user's personal homepage.  To get a project on your watch list, participation is required.  This could mean just posting a message on the project's message board to advising or funding it.

• NABUUR

"Nabuur," in Dutch, means neighbor. When people consider themselves neighbors they begin to share intellectual, spiritual, and tangible resources with one another in what is often a two way process. In today's global village, neighbors can co-operate across geographical boundaries. NABUUR is a Dutch foundation with the mission to build a network where local neighborhoods can engage people from around the world who care about their specific place in order to mobilize relevant knowledge, civic engagement, political advocacy, time, manpower, goods, and money. For more information, please contact Edith Zwagerman at edith.zwagerman@ateez.nl.

After receiving its first bit of funding just two weeks after DevelopmentSpace launched, the Freedom Through Education project in Coimbatore is now moving into implementation stage. The results were nearly instantaneous, said project leader, Ramachandra Dhirendra. 

The project, made famous by the Fortune Magazine article, eBay Charity Hybrid Yields Toilets and More will build toilets for more than 1400 school children in the South Indian province of Tamil Nadu . 

In association with Round Table India , Mr. Dhirendra posted the project in February, and worked his way through the business planning process. Once made available to the public, the project was embraced almost immediately because of it s high-impact and low-cost approach.

The Coimbatore project was one of several that Mr. Dhirendra has posted that seeks to leverage private philanthropy to fund improvements in Indian education. A second project in Karur, India will build classrooms for school students and has attracted the attention of BodhTree Consulting, a software development firm in Hyderabad , India . Taking a portion of their salaries, the employees of BodhTree have raised over $2,000 for the project. 

Prakash Iyer, a senior official at BodhTree was quite enthusiastic about the donation. This is a great start and if this concept is picked up by bigger organizations, even a 2% contribution from their days salary will do wonders, he said. 

The project has raised an additional $6,000 but still need s a little over $4,200 to move into implementation. 

An eBay for Development

August 2002

DevelopmentSpace is an ideal Web application - an eBay for development.  It creates an efficient marketplace for ideas to find money.  And it enables those at the forefront of development, who actually understand the realities, to find people and organizations (not necessarily the huge development agencies) that are willing to be innovative. Since the service launched in February, it has developed 50 projects, including a solar energy project in Tibet, an eye clinic in Nepal, and a project for bringing Web access to women in Cameroon .

For the complete article, click here.
                                        By Peter Schwartz

Project Name:  Carolina For Kibera, Inc.     

Summary:  A youth sports association, medical clinic, and nursery school in Kibera.   

Location:  Africa > Kenya > Nairobi

Project Name:   Martus            

Summary:  Technology tools for grass-roots social justice organizations .     

Location:   United States > California > Palo Alto

Project Name: Web Access for Women in Cameroon       

Summary:  Helping women entrepreneurs access information technology  

Location:  Africa > Cameroon > Douala