Change.org: The effect of change
Posted on May 14, 2013 by Danielle Faber
We’ve seen change come from the internet in many forms, from
aiding the Arab Spring to helping a wannabe pop star go viral. But for many of these things, change was not the intended outcome, but rather an effect of using social media to share personal experiences.
With the realization that social media effects change in almost any situation, Change.org is the perfect response to internet revolutions and forward thinking individuals.
Change.org is a platform where users create social petitions, share them, and ultimately effect change. Users add their cause and why they are fighting for it, and let interest and virality lead the way to success.
Success on Change.org means that the petition has enough signatures to cause the change the petition aimed for. This has been the outcome for thousands of posted petitions, from rallying against Gatorade , and the city of Edmonton , to rallying for support from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton .
Here are the main reasons social petitions are so effective:
It’s all social.
Unlike old school petitions, social petitioning on Change.org allows signers to see every person who has signed the petition before them. Signers can also set up public profiles to track previous participation and follow other people with similar interests on the site.
It’s crowd-sourced.
Crowd-sourcing has become the best way to know what people want to see because people are adding their own content! With 20 million Change.org users, each one has a cause, or many, that they are interested in. Allowing the users to not only add but also customize the petition pages for their causes creates unique perspectives that can only come from a crowd-sourced platform.
It makes us feel good.
Everyone is attracted to things that make them feel good, and that’s easy to see with the immense success of Change.org. Visiting the site and seeing all the causes users can take action for or against provides the feeling that they are contributing to the greater good. The sense of accomplishment that comes from taking action makes the Change.org user want to come back and keep signing for causes they believe in.
The tech world has used disruption to justify continuous innovation. Change.org exemplifies disruption with every new petition that is posted and even further with the victories.
Danielle is a Social Media Coordinator at 88 Creative. Follow her on Twitter at @DFabes .
Interesting and informative. gives insight into the many possibilities of social media