In the last week or so, we’ve heard a lot about community organizing – with many poignant comments ranging from the role of community organizers historically to the connection between “the difficult work done by community organizers and the pragmatic work of coalition-building done by elected officials.”  I’d like to add a digital perspective to the conversation. Organizing on the web is shaping the American political environment: influencing how people advocate for issues, support political candidates and engage their neighbors – near and far – in the political and policymaking process.

People everywhere, armed with laptops, cellphones, iPhones, Blackberrys and the like, are augmenting the efforts of organizers on the ground, broadening the dissemination of information, and pushing for policy change in really profound and impactful ways.

Care2.com is just one of many sites where online organizing is all abuzz. There’s an activist toolkit - join/start a group, start a petition, write a blog (nice) - to promote your cause; create a poll to gauge what issues people are most concerned about; or browse food & recipes, health & wellness, and healthy home (organizers are just ordinary folks who want to do good and live healthy, afterall).

This site is just one example. What are some other examples of everyday people using the power of technology for social change?

Tags: e-advocacy, online advocacy, organizers, organizing

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.