May 31, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Change.org, a new giving site, allows donors to work together to raise money for the issues they care about.
The site seeks to harness the interactivity of so-called Web 2.0 technologies to promote giving and advocacy, both in the nonprofit world and politics.
Visitors to the site can start or join online “communities” devoted to specific issues. People who have joined the group on global warming, for example, talk about why climate change matters to them, share news about the topic, recommend actions — both personal and political — that members can take, write reviews of charities working in the area, and post related photographs and videos.
The site takes several approaches to fund raising. Members can raise money together for charities focusing on a specific issue and for political candidates that receive strong recommendations and win the most votes from members of the online group. People can also use the site to ask their friends and family members to give to specific charities or candidates they care about.
People care passionately about social issues, but many — especially those under the age of 40 — have a hard time figuring out how to translate that concern into practical action, says Ben Rattray, the 26-year-old chief executive officer of Change.org.
At the same time, he says, nonprofit organizations face a “perennial problem” of how to reach out to younger people and make giving exciting.
“What we’re trying to do is really add a social element,” he says, so people are not giving “individually, in an isolated way, where they feel like they have no impact, but they’re doing it collectively with a group of people, many of whom may be their friends.”
In the site’s four-month test phase, it raised more than $26,000 for nonprofit organizations. The option to make political contributions was added to the site for its official debut last week.
Because the site allows people to make gifts to political campaigns, Change.org had to incorporate as a business. For all donations made through the site, a 1-percent fee goes to the company and 3.5 percent goes to cover the cost of processing the credit-card transaction. Change.org has raised no venture capital to finance the site. But its founders are starting to look for socially minded investors that will be more focused on the the site’s mission than on getting high returns quickly.
To get there: Go to http://www.change.org.
