Often, it takes joining with friends, colleagues or like-minded others to make big changes happen. You’ve probably heard of the woman,Molly Katchpole, who solicited others to demand that Bank of America drop their proposed $5 fee for using debit cards. 300,000 people joined her protest sand Bank of America backed down.
Another woman, Caitlan Lord starts a petition to protest the arreast of a mother for sending her child to the wrong school. 185,000 people join her; allies organize a petition delivery and call-in day to the Ohio Governor, who grants clemency to the mother.
There’s even a petition that got the new ABC show “Work It” cancelled for being sexist, racists and transphobic. BEFORE the show even aired. I suppose next time ABC might be a little pickier on which shows they heavily promote before the premiere. Another petition convinced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to support Saudia Arabian women driving, when she originally declined to take a position. Several petitions take up human rights issues and gain world wide participation.
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All of them succeeded by using the power of the internet and social networking that’s wrapped up in an outfit called Change.org. These are just a few of the success stories <http://www.change.org/victories > posted on Change. Org.
On this game-changing site, every day people, anyone, start petitions on some wrong they’re passionate about. Others join in and invariably change happens. In a good way. The organization advises petitioners to communicate on their petition exactly what they want to change.
The site offers detailed tips and guidelines on making petitions successful. These include how online petitions work, how to select a petition target, how to write a petition letter, and several other categories. For instance, How to Start an Online Petition details these 5 basic steps:
- Start by Deciding What You Want to Accomplish
- Identify the Right Target
- Write a Focused Petition Letter to Your Target
- Post your Petition Online
- Promote your Petition Through Social Networks and Online Communities
There are specific details under each step. All of the tips and guidelines are equally detailed.
Given the onslaught of ridiculous fees banks and utility companies, to name a few, are throwing out, Change.org might be a good website to bookmark. If these companies get hit with enough of these, perhaps it will occur to them that it’s wrong to make up for a bad economy and the fees the government have banned by sticking it to their customers. Perhaps, they realize they have to suck it up like the rest of us and dig into their cash reserve to make up for any legitimate shortfalls. Or, gasp, tighten their belts and cut out of line executive salaries. They could probably thin out the executive herd while they’re at it and make golden parachutes/handcuffs a dirty phrase. But I digress.
Change.org is good for social change as well. Check it out. Change the world. As Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world.
©2012 DLewis
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