Joi Podgorny

Change.org gets political

May 22, 2007 at 12:34 pm 1 comment

Change.org is a site created to mobilize those interested for political action, setting up groups and networks around political figures and even collecting donations for a cause or a politician.

Users can create groups to represent their cause, or find others to join based on tag words that indicate the issues others care about. Once you’ve found a cause, you can join members in their rally to action, participating in discussions and organizing things like a march or lobbying campaigns.

Members can nominate and vote for candidates to support or oppose, and even start a donation for a candidate as well, which will be sent to the candidate along with a letter describing what the donation is for, and where it came from. Users can also start email and calling campaigns by selecting the actual legislative body to target, and writing a letter that can be shared with the community.

Creating more inclusive and effective ways to organize the community around a political cause, garnering support for specific candidates, utilizes social networking in a potentially powerful way. Considering the upcoming presidential campaigns, it’s no surprise that sites like Change.org are sprouting up for raising awareness and playing on the influence of online social networks. Change.org seems to offer a lot of the resources needed to actually make a bit of a difference.

Others in this space include Knover and Open Congress.

Change.org to Launch Internet Grass Roots Site

technorati tags:politics, socialnetworking

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