Change.org was founded in 2007 by two Stanford graduates who were determined to explore if the power of social networks could be harnessed for good. For the first few years, Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas experimented with online social fundraising, blogging, and group volunteerism in an effort to empower people to create change. In 2010, a woman named Ndumi Funda used Change.org from a Cape Town internet cafe to start a petition to end the ‘corrective rape’ of lesbians. The petition went viral, gathering over 1,71,000 signatures from 175 countries. The South African government listened and formed a team to tackle the issue. People like Ndumi drove extraordinary change with petitions, and in 2010 the team decided to rebuild Change.org around the petition tool. In 2012, they expanded their platform globally and widened their mission to empower anyone, everywhere, to create the change they want to see. Today, Change.org is the world’s largest social change platform with over 480 million people using it in 196 countries. Country director, Nida Hasan, in an email interview with THE WEEK, talks about how India witnessed a new era of digital campaigning in the last decade with Change.org. Edited excerpts.
How have platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp helped in the evolution of Change.org apart from being used as amplifying tools for petitions. Also, have they ever obstructed the dissemination of your campaigns?
Petitions have been a fixture on the internet since at least the late 1990s. But the rise of social networks has given them a new life. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and other social media platforms are essential allies for Change.org. They help petition starters reach a larger audience, mobilize support and help in reaching out to decision makers who have the power to greenlight change that is being asked. A “decision maker” is the person or group of people who have the power and the responsibility to make the change you seek. Decision makers, media and social media have all played a crucial role in bringing each success story to life. However, the biggest challenge that we have faced so far has been that the emails sent by Change.org have been landing in Gmail’s 'promotions' tab since 2018. A Markup report in 2020 revealed that users receive only 11 per cent of the emails that they sign up for. Majority of the remaining emails landed in a tab called 'promotions', which Gmail says is for “deals, offers and other marketing emails”. People who sign petitions on Change.org are primarily kept informed and engaged through emails. We too have been impacted by this and are working to find a solution around it.
You talk about in-house experts who hear out petitions and try to provide redressal to one petition at a time. Can you elaborate on that? Isn't the redressal supposed to come from the policymaking/judicial levels or the public domain?
Change.org’s users are incredibly diverse and have a wide range of interests and opinions. On an average, every month over 6,000 petitions are started on Change.org in India alone. Change.org is available for everybody, everywhere to convert issues close to them into campaigns that can win. We have a small team in India that gives strategic support to campaigns. Change.org is an independent, free and open platform. It is not affiliated to any political party. However, politicians, corporates and other stakeholders are invited to be decision makers on the platform so that citizens’ voices and concerns can be addressed directly. Redressal for petitions comes from decision makers. Change.org provides a tool to policy makers, enabling them to discuss concerns directly and openly, and solve problems. Change.org gives elected officials and companies a birds-eye view of what matters to their communities. People communicate concerns to leaders via email, online feedback forms, phone calls, social media, and even snail mail every day. Decision makers on the platform cut across party lines to participate in the process of change. They respond, assess and give redressal to petition starters via the platform itself. Here’s how: 1. Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekar, MoS, ministry of electronics and IT has responded to 53 petitions on the platform. 2. Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi, has responded to 12 petitions on the platform. 3. Uddhav Thackeray, chief minister of Maharashtra has responded to 9 petitions on the platform. 4. Member of Parliament Gautam Gambhir has responded to 2 petition on the platform.
Can you mention examples of the many successful campaigns hosted by Change.org? Have you also devised a method to evaluate their success?
The petitions that win on Change.org are most often those that have a compelling personal narrative, have the right decision maker selected, and have a clear ask. Many times, winning campaigns also represent broader movements for change. In 2014, Change.org in India hit a milestone of 10 lakh users on its platform. Eight years later, Change.org India has over 4 crore users and we are continuing to grow! Over 520,000 petitions have been started on the platform in the past 10 years. On an average, over 6,000 petitions are started on the platform every month. In the first pandemic year of 2020, 1,050 petitions became victories which impacted the lives of millions of Indians. In 2021, this number was over 400. Since January 2022, 75 petitions have already become victories. A petition starter declares a victory only when they are completely satisfied with the outcome — once they start seeing tangible results around them. Sometimes, personal stories that speak to people’s hearts can drive large-scale change and become victories. For example, a single-mother’s campaign ensured that over 13 million single parents in India finally had the option of procuring a passport for their children as sole guardians. When a petition is directed to the right decision maker who has the power to make the specific change, we see great results. For example, Bhavya was able to ensure that women feel safer in Delhi by getting the Delhi urban development minister to respond to her petition asking for street lights near Metro stations. There are many such examples.
Which are some of the most controversial campaigns which you are nonetheless proud to spearhead because of the scale of its ambition and intention?
Petitions on change.org are spearheaded by the petition starter themselves. Change.org provides a platform to citizens to start and spearhead petitions on issues they feel most strongly for. Just like in the case of Masooma Ranalvi, a petition starter who started her petition five years ago, urging the government to ‘end female genetal mutilation’ in India. It has been signed by over 2,00,000 people. Over the course of the campaign, Masooma dived deeper into the laws on the protection of children, talked to many survivors and stakeholders. All of these gave her the confidence that she needed to become the face of the campaign against FGM across all media platforms in India. Today the world recognises Masooma as a subject matter expert on FGM in India. Masooma has also filed a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on FGM. The petition is still pending before the highest court and the government is yet to take action. While this is a controversial issue for many, we are proud to be associated with both Massoma and her fight to ban FGM in India. Another petition that started during the first Covid-19 lockdown asked PM Modi to appeal to Indian men to ‘Share the load’. Subarna, the petition starter, asked PM Modi to urge Indian men to do an equal share of housework during the pandemic. Petitions calling out the sexual division of labour are seen as controversial in Indian society because they confront the status quo in almost every Indian home. We are so proud to host and support women who start such petitions and take the women’s movement forward.
How has the pandemic changed the landscape of campaigning on the internet? What are some of the changes you would like to highlight in the way people pitch pleas in the past 10 years?
The Covid-19 pandemic has had enormous consequences on the health, life, and economy of millions of people worldwide. In a country like India, given the large population and the disparities that we have, the impact was even greater. The crisis also revealed a set of realities surrounding health systems, how companies treat their employees, government efficiency in responding to the coronavirus, among other social inequalities. The pandemic was the biggest singular event in the history of the world, where every person was affected in one way or another. And this reflected on our platform as well. Over 12,000 petitions were started in just the first month of the Covid-19 lockdown. This was twice our monthly average. Since people could no longer meet or organise physically, Change.org became people’s principal ally and the only safe way to bring about a change. In the 10-year history of Change.org India, Covid-19 became the biggest trending issue ever. Petitions started by concerned citizens covered a range of topics such as: rights of migrant workers, economic packages for marginalised communities, issues faced by people with disabilities during lockdown, school fee hikes during lockdown, safety of medical workers, protective equipment for sanitation workers and medical professionals, domestic violence and menstrual health, to name a few. It was around that moment when we realized that Change.org was starting to look like a barometer of citizen’s voices during the pandemic.
What is the direction Change.org is now planning to take? Has its usage come down? Or has the impact dented in recent years?
We can confidently say that on an average one petition wins on Change.org every day. The platform is also now available in Hindi and our stories of impact have gone beyond the metro cities to small towns and villages. We have seen women from small towns in the mountains and students from big metropolitan cities start petitions and make an impact. Last year, a 50-year-old petition starter from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, convinced the Himachal Pradesh government to increase pension income limit for single and widowed women. Her petition was supported by over 30,000 people and it became one of the most iconic victories of all time. The next decade will be about active social listening and we will continue to strengthen the bridge between people in power and common citizens.
