As this is a very nascent effort, I’d like to offer some constructive advise that I hope the designers will consider:

 

1.  Beth had mentioned to me that she was concerned that there was too much emphasis on fundraising on the site.  I can appreciate her concern, it does feel like all paths lead to, “Cvites” invitations to for fundraising for specific projects.  If the site ends up being, basically, a billboard for organizations to hype themselves and their fundraising needs, the promise of real social networking - of friends helping new and old friends better understand issues and participate - will be lost.  

 

2.  But I think that the fundraising concern is just a part of a larger concern that I have which is that the site is too organizationally focused.  The most exciting social change efforts in the last few years, in my opinion, have been outside of organizations.  Individuals have used online tools and created online networks to talk about ideas, mobilize people, petition decision-makers, meetup and publish blogs to push for social change.  Change.org could be much more effective, in my opinion, if it focused on ways to support individual action through networks, rather than focuses on ways that organizations can get individuals to do what they want.  

 

Very specifically on this point, I signed up to support the cause of stopping global warming.  On the Stop Global Warming page, there is a list of “friends” like me who support this cause, plus photos, videos and testimonials from these friends on why this is an important cause.  But when it comes to action down the left side, the only ways to act, according to Change.org, is to support an organization like Nature Conservancy, donate to projects or volunteer for an event or join a meetup organized by an organization.  What about the myriad ways that individuals can work towards reversing the effects of global warming.  From small things like buying new, energy efficient light bulbs, to organizing their own meetings with their elected officials.  I would love to see more discussion, problem solving, idea generation from the “friends” who support this issue, and less organizational promotion.

 

To make the organizational-centric focus even worse, is that the organization it highlights, the Nature Conservancy, was hauled in front of the Senate Finance Committee in 2003  after a series in the Washington Post reporting on the conflict of interest of their national board members selling land at discounted prices to board members on which to build luxury homes.  The information on the site for the organizational feels like brochureware not honest opinions.