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?

The Washington Post yesterday featured an interesting look at the “cadre of young black activists…using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement.”

Led by the bright and innovative folks at ColorofChange.org, the movement is gaining steam, influence and members every day. The movement has carved a niche for itself by rallying around traditionally overlooked issues like the Jena 6, the demolition of New Orleans public housing and even the relatively wonky concerns about a FEC commission nominee’s questionable stands on voter suppression issues.

Blogger Gina McCauley, 32, who is organizing the first conference of nonwhite bloggers this summer in Atlanta, said that what Jones and Rucker have started “can potentially become a new Niagara movement,” a reference to the small contingent of black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who met near Niagara Falls in 1905 to form an organization to oppose segregation. The organization eventually became the NAACP.

Others have another name for the new efforts by black bloggers: Civil Rights 2.0. Blogger L.N. Rock said that if abolitionist Frederick Douglass, former congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and “people like that were around today, they would have blogs.”

The organizing and policy potential of this movement is limitless. We’re already seeing real on-the-ground progress. By supporting and patronizing these sites, we can unleash another major force in the Equity Movement.