Change.org

Can Ashton and the Twitterazi Really Save Lives?

by Kari Dunn Saratovsky on 21 Apr 2009 1
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Sure, the race to a million twitter followers is “so last week.” But what an interesting week it made for celebrity philanthropy. While the race to a million came to an end with Ashton Kutcher pulling ahead of CNN Breaking News, many in the “twitter-verse” and beyond hoped that celebrities posturing for attention would just go away.  But could this be a new and important trend in how celebrities are using their power to inspire millions for social good?

In case you missed it, here’s how things unfolded.  Last week, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) realizing he was only a few tens of thousands of followers behind CNN (@cnnbrk) decided to take the network on and create an online movement to help him obtain the first twitter account to reach 1 million followers.  At first, Ashton committed to prank Ted Turner should he beat CNN to a million – but quickly the philanthropic side of Ashton kicked in, and he raised the stakes.  If Ashton beat CNN Breaking News to 1 million followers he pledged to donate 10,000 anti-Malaria bednets during World Malaria Day.  As Nathanial Whittemore asked on his blog Friday, did this have an impact on the results?  You bet it did. 

Not only did Ashton commit to giving back and supporting the great work of Malaria No More but what’s more, he introduced millions (via twitter, plus his appearances on Oprah and Larry King Live) to the idea that every individual can be part of making decisions that lead to global change, in this case the eradication of Malaria. 

Twitter helped raise awareness and launch a movement that got the attention of everyone from my neighbors to Oprah Winfrey. Millions are now aware of the efforts to control the spread of malaria worldwide – and a campaign launched on Change.org last week is giving individuals everywhere an opportunity to get involved in the action.   
 
Personally, I use Twitter because I think it is a useful, engaging way to connect with other people and participate in a global discussion. According to comScore, Twitter more than doubled its users in March, reaching 9.3 million. And this growth is the reason that so many of your friends are now logging on and checking it out – granted, the majority of those folks are probably fans of Ashton or Oprah.
 
So, how do we keep the conversation on Twitter meaningful and relevant? For me, Twitter has inspired blog posts, introduced me to new people in the social media and social change space, and given me a place to connect and learn from others who have been at this for much longer than me.
 
As Nathaniel said in his post last week, “it's easy to be cynical about this, but what if we thought about it different. Changing the world is damn hard, and the responsibility we owe this planet and the billions of people we share it with should never be taken lightly. But there are lots of incredibly easy ways that even normal folks can save lives, and we should never let the difficult of the big picture stop us from making incremental change along the way.”
 
As my colleagues and I are thinking through some new programs at the Case Foundation, we often think about how celebrities can help spread the word and influence others to take action.  What have your experiences been involving celebrities in your campaigns and outreach? At the end of the day, does a celebrity endorsement of a product or cause even influence your decision?
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As Ideas for Change Competition Ends, What Can We Learn?

by Kari Dunn Saratovsky on 17 Jan 2009 3

With nearly 8,000 ideas and more than 600,000 votes, the Ideas for Change In America competition of Change.org made evident a widespread interest in the power of technology to enable citizen-centered policy change. We’ve been watching with great interest here on Social Citizens as thousands of ideas have funneled into Change.org since early November.

But with yesterday’s announcement of the top ten ideas and a lively panel discussion at the National Press Club, I’ve been focused on what it means as this new era of participatory democracy takes hold - perhaps even more so than on the ideas themselves. It’s one thing to rally your network to elect an individual candidate or to vote for a specific idea – but how do you take that network and sustain it, and more importantly how do you use technology to bring new and diverse voices into the dialogue? Read more »

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Ideas for Change in America Update

by Allison Fine on 16 Dec 2008

title-change-in-americaTwo weeks into a grand experiment of crowd sourcing ideas for the incoming Obama Administration, Change.org has received 3,681 ideas to date in almost thirty different categories. According to Change.org Founder and CEO Ben Rattray, the Change community is getting deeply involved to champion these ideas --wtih around 10,000 comments and more than 100,000 votes.

They also have a huge and growing list of partner nonprofit groups including Campus Progress, People for the American Way, Oxfam, and well, you can check all of them out here.

Some of the hot topics: Read more »

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Change.org and MySpace Launch Ideas for America

by Allison Fine on 24 Nov 2008 1

Change.org and MySpace have launched Ideas for Change in America (or on MySpace, www.myspace.com/changedotorg). The idea for "Ideas" is simple: post your idea for reforming government, get your friends to vote for it, watch your idea rise (or not!), and see which ideas percolate to the top. Read more »

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CauseWired is Changing the World

by Allison Fine on 23 Oct 2008

Some books come and go very quickly. Others are stickier and crystallize and capture a moment in time. CauseWired by Tom Watson fits perfectly into the latter category. 

Over the past decade or so a growing field of peer-to-peer philanthropy efforts powered by new social media tools like blogs and cell phones has created an array of ground-breaking efforts such as Kiva, DonorsChoose, and Change.org. 

All of these efforts are taking place within the context of the emergence of an enormous generation, the 70 million-plus Millennials, of idealist activists. (For our purposes, we call them Social Citizens!) Watson captures the importance of social citizens with an empathy and clarity that is too often overlooked by writers and activists with Watson's experience. Read more »

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Newsweek Brings About Change(.org)

by Julia Rocchi on 9 Oct 2008

Time for some morning math!

(New media + adaptation) * (new perspectives + information) = a whole lot more people reached.

That's why I dig this Newsweek article about Change.org, an online community relaunching as an online hub and media network for social issues and collective action. Now, people can follow any of Change.org's 13 separate issue-oriented blogs, each with a dedicated editor.

This smart transition is part of a larger move toward connecting online and offline behavior. One timely example is the current election fervor to not only get us to the voting booth, but also keep us involved and participating long after the inauguration. (And of course, I was excited to see Newsweek supporting its points with stats from our foundation, as well as our partners Tom Watson and CNCS.) Read more »

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