In October 2011, Molly Katchpole, a 22-year-old nanny working two jobs, started a petition pressuring Bank of America to drop a new $5 monthly debit card fee. In just one month, Katchpole obtained 300,000 signatures and drove customers away from Bank of America, gathering national media exposure in the meantime until the bank agreed to not move forward with the fee.
The support that Katchpole leveraged for her petition in such a short period of time reflects the collective activist mission of Change.org, the social action platform through which Katchpole launched her campaign. The platform is intended to empower people all over the world to create real change in their community, city, or country and establish an international network motivated to “fight for what’s right.” People from all over the globe are mobilizing support and participating in grassroots campaigns that focus on causes like education, human rights, the environment, and criminal and economic justice. These causes are humanized and made personal, as the voice behind the campaign shares his/her struggle with the issue and invites those who sign the petition to do the same.
Change.org makes creating a campaign easy. The site provides advocacy tools for free and has a team of support who promotes your campaign to members of the site, connects you with potential partners, and helps you with media outreach and strategy. If you have an issue you would like to see resolved, click here to start your campaign.
You can browse featured, popular, or recent petitions here.