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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

#51

Post by jonbarker »

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…

Nonprofits have cash flow and profit/loss too, they just call the profit 'surplus'.

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

#52

Post by pvnick »

With the rise in interest in political activism, it's worth reading Saul Alinksy's Rules for Radicals. All sides are moving towards utilization of the tactics and ethics contained therein, and it's helpful to understand how community organizing works in the age of mass media.

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

#54

Post by dgranda »

dpeck wrote: post #23
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…

can't tell if this is in jest, is "considered for debate" really a better option for bringing about change? At the end of the day influence (and by proxy money since it buys influence) is pretty much all that matters in changing policy.

I am sure it is much more effective (and expensive) to lobby, but regular citizens can't afford it. There is a long way to go and "considered for debate" is just the first step.

Change.org only guarantees that all data you have provided (including what you are not aware of) will be sold to highest bidder.

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

#55

Post by phpwn »

dandelion_lover wrote: post #53

I truly cannot understand how such a non-profit website could implement Google analytics, which tracks the users. Any desire to sign the petitions disappears. They could utilize piwik analytics.

The article describes Change.org as "a for-profit petition and fundraising website..."

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

#56

Post by zastrowm »

pc86 wrote: post #48
Angostura wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's still been invited on a state visit.

Are people in the UK really signing a petition that amounts to "don't invite the President of the United States to the UK on an official visit"?

I wondered the same, so I looked it up: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928

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

#57

Post by electricEmu »

dandelion_lover wrote: post #53

I truly cannot understand how such a non-profit website could implement Google analytics, which tracks the users. Any desire to sign the petitions disappears. They could utilize piwik analytics.

That's a pretty entitled viewpoint. Block it, politically organize, or develop a better product that costs less in time.

A non-profit might be wasting money if they're trying to get piwik analytics working. Time isn't free.

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

#58

Post by dragonwriter »

jonbarker wrote: post #51
dragonwriter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Nonprofits have cash flow and profit/loss too, they just call the profit 'surplus'.

Not-for-profit (including that as part of the qualification of a tax exempt nonprofit) has nothing to do with the entity not making surplus revenues, it has more to do with the entity not being a tool to return profits to those who control it.

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

#59

Post by teej »

dandelion_lover wrote: post #53

I truly cannot understand how such a non-profit website could implement Google analytics, which tracks the users. Any desire to sign the petitions disappears. They could utilize piwik analytics.

I don't think it's worth tossing out such a statement without at least some justification of the tradeoffs and costs.

Do you think it is a smart deployment of capital and mindshare to spend money for server costs, eng implementation time, and devops time to maintain and scale piwik?

Do you think piwik will realistically work on a website with 180 million users and growing? From what I can tell, Change.org would be one of the largest piwik installations on the internet. Their site mentions they "know of several websites with 100 million pageviews per month".

If not piwik, is there something else?

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

#60

Post by eli »

dragonwriter wrote: post #21
eli wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you just described .ngo, though I've never actually seen one in the wild.

.ngo/.ong doesn't require official non-profit status, it just (in that dimension, there are requirements in other dimensions) requires an organization to be non-profit-focussed.

I don't understand the difference. You mean like a C-Corp might technically qualify if they happen to be focused on the public interest and not generating profits?

As a global TLD it surely makes more sense to look at what an organization actually does than just blindly go by what the local tax authority thinks.

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