Change.org is an online activism platform. The idea is very simple: if you want to promote a change to improve your environment, you publish your request and ask Internet users for support. And if you get significant support, you may change what you don’t like.Change.orgwas born in 2007 and already has more than 20 million users in 196 countries, and Spaniards are among the most active, according to Francisco Polo, director of Change.org Spain. The platform obtained theIRedes Institutional Category Award at the III Ibero-American Congress of Social Networks“For breaking the digital barrier and being recognized on the street as a useful instrument to generate changes, as well as for the enormous diffusion achieved by their campaigns.”
Very Interesting: What trends would you highlight in the field of online activism?
Francisco Polo: Empowerment. In just a couple of years, Spain has taken the lead in the use of petition platforms such as Change.org. Every day more people in our country realize the power they have to change things. They initiate and support petitions on the issue that most concerns them. It is really impressive to observe how in the face of problems, citizens take a step forward and initiate movements to fight against them.
Very Interesting: How do you see the immediate future of social networks? What kinds of interactions, what features, and what platforms will be boosted in the coming years?
Francisco Polo: The immediate future has just arrived: visits from mobile devices are overtaking desktop visits on almost all web platforms. The way users interact with online platforms changes and platforms have to respond to this challenge by taking extreme care of the usability of their web versions and mobile applications.
Very Interesting: What are the keys to the success of Change.org? What differences do you see in the behavior of “online activists” in Spain compared to other countries where they are established?
Francisco Polo: The key to success is to be able to articulate a good theory of change: to propose the solution to a problem to who can make a decision along those lines. And that works. Every time we find better requests on the platform, because users see that it is possible to generate changes. Once you have changed something, you cannot stop. Spain is the Change.org country in which we have the highest user penetration: over 10% of Internet users in Spain are Change.org users, that is, people in Spain are more mobilized than in other countries .
Very Interesting: What changes and improvements does your platform have planned?
Francisco Polo: We are going to strengthen the infrastructure of our platform to be prepared for spectacular growth: in just two years we have gone from 1 to 25 million users and we expect to reach 100 million in two years. Second, offer more and better tools for users that allow them to manage their requests and continue to empower people to generate the changes they want to see.
Very Interesting: How is Change.org funded?
Francisco Polo: In the same way that YouTube does. As with that platform, you can have a free request, at no cost. But if you are, for example, an organization, you can promote your petition on our website, just like the videos promoted on YouTube. In other words, we finance ourselves with an advertising model. The difference with respect to other companies is that we are a social company: our objective is not to maximize profits but to achieve social impact. That is why we reinvest all the profits in the platform, in order to continue offering a service like this that aims to empower people to generate the change they want to see.
Very Interesting: Which Change.org campaign are you particularly proud of?
Francisco Polo: Antonio is married to another man and they decided to have a daughter by the surrogacy method, the so-called surrogacy. When their daughter was born in the United States, they went to the consular registry to register her. While the children of heterosexual couples had no problem registering, Antonio was denied the registration of his daughter. This meant that upon entering Spain, she became an undocumented immigrant without access to education, health, etc. Antonio created a petition and in just one week, with 600 signatures, he got the Minister of Justice, Francisco Caamaño, to give an order to end this discrimination.
Very Interesting: What social change would you like to contribute?
Francisco Polo: Get people to realize that they have the power to change whatever they want.
Photography: Victoriano Izquierdo
