About
Change.org is an online petition platform which allows anyone to launch and participate in crowdsourced petitions. In 2012, the site surpassed more than 20 million users in 196 countries.
History
After two years of development, Change.org[1] was launched in February 2007 by the San Francisco-based for-profit organization Change.org, Inc.. In its first year, the site allowed users to search for nonprofits and politicians to support based on political movements. The day of the site’s launch, it was featured on TechCrunch[2], who likened the site’s original design to that of a social network. At launch, users could add friends, share photos and join groups, known as “Changes,” based on social issues and nonprofit organizations.
The site was also featured on VentureBeat[3] and the Nonprofit Technology Network[4] in spring 2007 and by July, the site launched a Facebook application[5] where users could easily access the site through their Facebook account. After President Obama’s election in 2008, Change.org partnered with social networking site MySpace to create a platform where users could submit policy ideas for Barack Obama (shown below).
Petitions
In November 2009, Change.org introduced their petition tool[12], integrating non-profit organization Democracy in Action’s government data with social media share buttons and embed codes. After transitioning away from its original social network setup, the site saw its first major spike in traffic after a petition was made in July 2011 to create a law to make it a felony for a parent or guardian to not notify authorities after a child has been missing for 24 hours. As of December 6th, 2012, the site hosts more than 350 thousand petitions, with 40,000 being created every month, which are browsable by popular topics, amount of signatures and most recent submissions.
The site has staff in twenty countries that provide translations in eleven different languages. Change.org also features[14] successful petitions on a blog page that have resulted in real-life changes including a petition ensuring health care for victims affected by contaminated water at a military base[15] and another urging schools to remove LFTB, a mixture of beef scraps and connective tissue, from school food.[16] Change.org maintains a presence on other forms of social networking including Facebook[9] and Twitter[10], where it has more than 102K likes and 415K followers respectively as of December 2012.
Highlights
Caylee’s Law
Following Casey Anthony being found not guilty for the murder of her two-year-old daughter Caylee in July 2011, a handful of petition launched calling for governors to make not reporting a child missing after 24 hours a felony for parents or guardians. One in particular, written by Oklahoma resident Michelle Crowder[17] gained more than 1.2 million electronic signatures within 14 days. In response, lawmakers in eleven states have proposed bills of this nature and as of December 2012, seven of those have been approved.[18]
Trayvon Martin
On March 8th, 2012, Tracey Martin and Sybrina Fulton launched a petition[19] seeking justice for their son, Trayvon Martin, after he was murdered in Sanford, Florida. In less than two weeks, the petition became the fastest growing on the site, at one point gaining 1000 new signatures per minute.[20] More than 2.2 million people virtually signed the petition before it was announced that a Florida State Attorney would charge neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman with second degree murder. The trial is scheduled to begin in June 2013.
Media Coverage
Following the attention Change.org recieved from the Trayvon Martin case, the site began appearing in the media more frequently with mentions on NPR[21], the Huffington Post[22], Mashable[23], Forbes[24] and the Wall Street Journal[25], among others. Many of these articles touch on the for-profit aspect of the site, by generating revenue from the email addresses of users who sign petitions.
Traffic
As of December 2012, Change.org has a Quantcast[7] score of 1024 in the United States, seeing 1.6 million monthly users, and a global Alexa[8] score of 1395. In September 2012, the site had surpassed 20 million total users[11], breaking 25 million in December.[13]
Search Interest
External References
[2]TechCrunch – Social Networking For Change(.org)
[3]VentureBeat – Change.org, the network for political change
[4]NTEN– Will Change.org change…well, anything?
[5]Mashable – Change.org Application Now Live on Facebook
[6]Wired – Change.org Crowdsources An Agenda For Incoming Administration
[7]Quantcast – Change.org
[8]Alexa – Change.org
[9]Facebook – Change.org
[11]Gigaom – Change.org: 20M users but not a single server
[12]Future:Media:Change – Road to Petition: Is Change.org’s new tool really the ‘Most powerful petition tool on the web’?
[13]PR Web – Change.org Hits 25 Million Users, Becomes World’s Largest Petition Platform
[15]Change.org – Health Care Now for Military Families Poisoned at Camp Lejeune
[16]Change.org – Tell USDA to STOP Using Pink Slime in School Food!
[17]Change.org – Create Caylee’s Law
[18]Wikipedia – Caylee’s Law
[19]Change.org – Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin
[20]LA Times – Trayvon Martin case gives Change.org a boost -- and vice versa
[21]NPR– Petitions Are Going Viral, Sometimes To Great Success
[22]The Huffington Post – Change.org Petitions Targeting Restaurants Gain Steam
[23]Mashable – How Change.org Is Revolutionizing Internet Activism
[24]Forbes – The Business Behind Change.org’s Activist Petitions
[25]Wall Street Journal – Change.org Tests the Line Between Activism, Profits