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Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

fortune.com

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Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#31

Post by adamsea »

xexers wrote: post #18
pestkranker wrote: post #5

I would like to see a world where petitions are much more taken into account. Unfortunately, for many leaders, they are not taken seriously. I hope Change.org can do something about this.

There are some petitions on change.org which I, as a citizen, would like to petition against (rather than for). A petition may have huge support but it also may have huge opposition... that opposition is not shown on change.org. Not showing the opposition to an issue paints a skewed image that I hope politicians can recognise. For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentia…

Create a petition for the opposite thing.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#32

Post by _m8fo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #19
_m8fo wrote: post #6

I wish there was a TLD that was regulated such that only a legitimate not for profit organization could have it, similar to .edu. Change having a .org TLD is incredibly misleading. It's not a non-profit, and no, B corporations do not count.

> Change having a .org TLD is incredibly misleading. It's not a non-profit, Even when there was a notional nonprofit requirement for .org, it was never enforced, and it hasn't actually existed for some time. It's only misleading to people who impute a meaning to .org that it does not claim and had never actually had.

I think people are intentionally misleading by using a .org though. Otherwise, why not do a .com? Clearly they believe and/or know there's some sort of "social" aspect to it.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#33

Post by vit05 »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

In Brazil too[0]. The numbers are different, but if a petition reaches a certain number of signatures our Congress has to lead to the plenary. You could use the official government website for that. Recently we had a Law called 10 mediated against the corruption[1] that followed this script. Unfortunately, our Congress has greatly changed the proposal. I participated actively in this campaign and I am participating in some other proposals that are being built. What I have discovered is that getting in touch with a congressman so that he or she will sponsor the proposal and defend it in its originality is much faster and with a higher success rate. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a possibility to prevent congressmen from altering the public petition and this allows they to transform something positive into something very bad.

[0]https://www12.senado.leg.br/ecidadania/principalmateria (in portuguese) [1]http://www.dezmedidas.mpf.mp.br/campanha/documentos (in portuguese)

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#34

Post by alexbeloi »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
koolba wrote: post #27

Is change.org a for-profit enterprise? The name suggests otherwise. If so, it's not really an investment in the traditional sense where you'd expect a return.

> Is change.org a for-profit enterprise? By their own description, no, though they are identical to one in at least superficial legal form (I don't know if their corporate governing documents do anything to address this.) Note that not-for-profit is not a crisp legal category ("nonprofit" is a term used for specific tax classification which requires a number of other qualifications and accepting a number of behaviora…

The linked article describes them as a for-profit org.

> Change.org, a for-profit petition and fundraising website focused on social and political change.

They are a B-corp for what that's worth.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#35

Post by xexers »

adamsea wrote: post #31
xexers wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some petitions on change.org which I, as a citizen, would like to petition against (rather than for). A petition may have huge support but it also may have huge opposition... that opposition is not shown on change.org. Not showing the opposition to an issue paints a skewed image that I hope politicians can recognise. For example, if the evangelicals made a petition to ban abortions in USA, it could potentia…

Create a petition for the opposite thing.

I think that's easier said than done. People are inspired to up-vote a petition if it has action... but what if you're position is that we just keep doing the status quo on an issue.

For example, you can imagine a petition saying:

"The gender pay gap is statistically $0.72 for female workers. I propose we simply SOLVE this now. Let's tax MEN and give the proceeds to women to even up this pay disparity".

Sadly, I've seen petitions like that and they are as absurd as my hypothetical above.... but you're asking me to make a petition saying:

"The existing laws around gender discrimination are plenty good. Let's keep with what have now"

Somehow I feel like my petition wont take off.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#36

Post by tonyedgecombe »

bshimmin wrote: post #13
dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

Unfortunately, whether or not the petition is debated in Parliament, it won't actually change the law or government policy, because the government doesn't in the slightest bit care about the petitions.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#37

Post by yuhong »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
koolba wrote: post #27

Is change.org a for-profit enterprise? The name suggests otherwise. If so, it's not really an investment in the traditional sense where you'd expect a return.

> Is change.org a for-profit enterprise? By their own description, no, though they are identical to one in at least superficial legal form (I don't know if their corporate governing documents do anything to address this.) Note that not-for-profit is not a crisp legal category ("nonprofit" is a term used for specific tax classification which requires a number of other qualifications and accepting a number of behaviora…

I really wish they would make it easier for example to convert a "for-profit" to a self-perpetuating board of directors for example.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#38

Post by [deleted] »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

[deleted]

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#39

Post by Angostura »

dgranda wrote: post #11

There is much better option in some countries if you want to change some law or government policy. For example, in the UK any British citizen or UK resident can create an online petition to be discussed in UK Parliament [1]. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, the government will respond. If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. And source code is available on GitHub [2…

I don't think there is a single instance of a petition leading to legislation, though.

Re: Change.org Raises $30M Led by Reid Hoffman; Sam Altman and Bill Gates Invest Too

#40

Post by Angostura »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #36
bshimmin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, whether or not the petition is debated in Parliament, it won't actually change the law or government policy, because the government doesn't in the slightest bit care about the petitions.

I'm not sure that is totally true, it would be silly to ignore something that got a strong response.

Trump's still been invited on a state visit.
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