
Today we are excited to announce the launch of Changemakers on Change.org! For the past three months, more than 100,000 Change.org members have participated in nominating and voting for the leaders who they feel best personify a Changemaker, resulting in a remarkable network of people.
For those of you who haven’t been following along at home, the goal of the Changemakers network is to promote a selection of some of the most prominent voices in social change across all sectors – politics, activism, nonprofits, academics, business, and entertainment- and highlight the work those individuals are doing on the most important issues of the day.
As you’ll see when exploring the Changemakers site, we have a remarkable group of people involved. They range from actors like Mia Farrow and Fran Drescher, to environmental champions such as Robert Kennedy Jr. and Bill McKibben, to elected officials like Representatives John Lewis and George Miller and Senator John Kerry – and the list goes on.
This announcement is just the beginning, and your role now begins. We need your help in supporting the work of each Changemaker, engaging with them on the issues they’re focused on, and helping to spread the word. To start, you can keep up with their activity by going to each Changemaker’s individual profile and clicking the “follow” button. Or, you can start by reading each of their first posts on Change.org, and finding out what makes each Changemaker tick.
Although we plan to keep the Changemakers network relatively small, we are always open to your suggestions for who should be included, and will be inviting additional people to join the network over time – including a number of those already nominated. If you have someone in mind, feel free to nominate them as soon as we open up nominations again.
Thanks to everyone for participating in the voting process and for your continued dedication to so many important causes. As we enter 2010, I know that the rapidly growing Change.org community will continue to have a positive impact on the world and that together we will continue to create real change.

In a few hours, it’ll be out with the old and in with the new as we welcome the start of a new year, filled with new opportunities to create change. But, before we put on our party hats and launch into a rousing chorus of Auld Lang Syne, we wanted to take a look back at some of the best (and worst) of 2009 across all of our causes.
The food industry launched a new nutrition labeling scheme this fall called Smart Choices, hoping to sell more highly processed foods such as Froot Loops by marking them as “healthy” based on their fortified nutrients. This would have been an easily dismissible marketing tactic except that researchers associated with several prominent nonprofits – including the American Diabetes and Dietetic Associations and the Tufts School of Nutrition – were members of the Smart Choices board and giving the program false legitimacy. Thousands of Change.org members responded by calling on these three nonprofits to disassociate themselves from the marketing scheme. Two days later all three organizations responded by publicly denouncing the Smart Choices initiative, dealing a significant blow to the program’s claim to legitimacy. Within a few weeks the deceptive multi-million dollar initiative was suspended, giving the public a rare and important victory over the sort of deceptive food marketing that has contributed to America’s obesity epidemic.
Want your energy drinks homophobic free? Change.org members made that easier after it was revealed that Rockstar Energy Drink had an intimate connection to the homophobic radio show host Michael Savage, whose son and wife run the energy drink business. Following intense pressure from Change.org members and a few weeks of negotiation, Rockstar not only publicly disavowed Michael Savage’s anti-gay statements (of which there are many), but also committed to expand their LGBT-friendly corporate policies and pledged to support the broader gay community by donating $100,000 to LGBT organizations. A hat trick, if you will.
In 2005, The Department of Labor (DOL) was mandated by Congress to issue a report on the countries and companies using slave and child labor across the world. Yet since that time DOL had made the document confidential and resisted its release, fearing negative reaction from trading partners. After we exposed this resistance on Change.org, in partnership with the anti-slavery organization
In a story that we initially couldn’t believe was true, we wrote earlier this year about a partnership between the credit card company Diners Club International (owned by Discover) and Vietnam Brides International, which enabled card holders in Asia to buy women on credit. Mail-order brides are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking and exploitation, and Change.org’s human trafficking community rapidly responded to the story by demanding that Diners Club end their policy of treating women as commodities to be bought and solid. After thousands of letters, hundreds of tweets and 48 hours, Diners Club responded to the campaign, apologized, and canceled their partnership with Vietnam Brides International. Success!
Earlier this month, Change.org blogger Diane Nilan reported on how the main homeless shelter in Grand Junction, Colorado would not house families during the day, despite the freezing cold weather. As a result, children were wandering the streets seeking a safe, warm place to avoid the snow until the shelter re-opened each night. Change.org members responded by emailing Grand Junction mayor Bruce Hill, calling on the city to find a way to provide services during the day for homeless children. A few days afterward the city responded, acknowledged the oversight, and reported that it had secured a warm location for children and families during the day. As the rate of homelessness skyrockets across the country, this is a heartening example of the power we have to improve the lives of others if we’re willing to fight on their behalf.
Here at Change.org, we like winning. A lot.
















