The realms of the nonprofit tech space and the social entrepreneurship sphere share a lot of overlap. I've had a number of conversations, though, with those who identify more with the former realm sort of at a loss when it comes to navigating the latter. "I've created this awesome widget or application or I have this great idea, but I'm not quite sure how to move forward with it," is a common concern that I hear voiced quite often. 

Kiva announced yesterday, the official launch of the Kiva API and our new developer website, build.kiva.org. With the introduction of the Kiva API, we begin a new era of building Kiva.org. We're putting tools in the hands of developers worldwide to make it easier and more transparent than ever to fund entrepreneurs in the developing world. If you're a hacker, a hard core developer, or just curious, head over to the site now to help us build the next to check it out!

http://build.kiva.org/

Nokia Conversations is in the middle of profiling a number of organisations and businesses who have a focus on helping the developing world.  Three organizations have already been highlighted and more are on the way.  You can follow along with the updates on the Nokia Conversations blog here.

Who's helping the developing world?

The next Net Tuesday San Francisco on September 9th will feature Nikki Serapio, the Director of Community Marketing for Involver. Involver facilitates companies and organizations building, launching, promoting, managing and monitoring video campaigns on social networks.

Chirag Shah, Special Projects Manager at Kiva.org, will also be on hand to talk about Kiva's experience using Involver.

If you don't live in the Bay Area, an audio recording of the speakers will be available on the NetSquared Podcast (thanks to David Collin) and a video will be posted on the NetSquared Blip TV Channel (thanks to Ross Chapman) after the event.

If you do live in the Bay Area, RSVP on Meetup, Facebook or Upcoming!

'Tis the season for spending. In fact, consumers are about to unlease over $100 billion in holiday spending. The holidays is also the time of year where nonprofits make the push for seasonal donations. Several nonprofit giving sites have found ways to help nonprofits harness some of the huge holiday expenditures towards their own causes.

Set your TiVos! Tuesday, September 4th, former President Bill Clinton will be on Oprah to discuss his new book, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. He will be joined by Matt and Jessica Jackley Flannery, the husband and wife co-founders of Kiva.org.

You can read Matt's account of the taping on his blog, The Kiva Chronicles. Here is a little piece from his post:

"The President and Ms. Winfrey spent the next few minutes talking about the power of the Internet and "the Kiva model." Watching this was truly surreal. If you had told me a year ago that I would watch these two people discussing Kiva in front of millions on TV, I would have laughed."

We recently revamped our Net Tuesday page on the site so that each of the Net Tuesday locations (SF, Houston, Washington DC--we're still working on Chicago's page) has its own page where they can add content.

On the SF Net Tuesday page you can download PowerPoint presentations given by Kiva and PLoS at previous Net Tuesdays, as well as audio recordings of the presentations, and interviews with the presenters by David Collin.

If you'd like to start a NetSquared Meetup group in your area, download a Net Tuesday toolkit and let us know at net2 AT techsoup DOT org.  We're still looking for someone to take over the NetSquared Los Angeles.  It already has 49 members who are just waiting for an organizer.

You can hear Matt Flannery's presentation at last month's Net Tuesday in San Francisco about Kiva on the NetSquared Podcast.  Matt is the co-founder and CEO of Kiva, an Internet-based nonprofit that allows individuals to loan money through PayPal to entrepreneurs in the "developing" world.  You can also listen to David Collins' interview with Matt here.

"Amazing things will happen, if you just ask," said Pim Techamuanvivit, aka Chez Pim, the creator of Menu for Hope, and a speaker at last night's Net Tuesday in San Francisco. It was by asking that she got food bloggers and other food lovers to donate raffle prizes to Menu for Hope like tea with Harold McGee, coffee with Thomas Keller, and dinner with Eric Asimov. And it is working. As of this writing (5:15 PM PST) the Menu for Hope campaign has been up for about 3 days and has already sold $12,510.00 in raffle tickets to benefit the UN World Food Programme. Techamuanvivit attributes the campaign's success to, "Community with a capital C." Most of the people who donate and bid on the prizes are part of the food blogging community.

Matt Flannery also started Kiva by asking his community for help. He and his wife emailed their wedding guests and asked them to fund seven entrepreneurs in Africa. Kiva, "grew in concentric networks of community," Flannery said. They are presently providing $20,000 a day in loans to aspiring businessmen and women who are working their way out of poverty.

The audience had more questions than we had time for: Have you ever had prizes not be delivered? How do you prevent fraud? How do guarantee that the entrepreneurs are reputable? Both speakers explained different ways that they protect their donors, but in the end their answers were the same. Trust. Kiva chooses their lenders through recommendations from highly regarded microfinance institutions (MFIs). Techamuanvivit "knows" all of the people who donate prizes through the food blogging community. Neither project can 100% guarantee that all of their loans will be paid back, or that all of the prizes promised will be delivered, but so far their track records are good. Kiva has had a 0% default rate on their loans and Menu for Hope only had one prize not be delivered because of a shipping problem--you are not allowed to ship salt to Italy. "I guess they have enough salt in Italy," said Pim smiling.

Are you looking for new fundraising models that are fun, engaging and use the social web?  Come hear Matt Flannery, CEO and Co-Founder of Kiva.org, the first Web site to let anyone with a PayPal account be a "banker to the poor", and Pim Techamuanvivit (Chez Pim) a food blogger who raised $17,000 for UNICEF with her 2005 Menu for Hope campaign.