Here at C Clean, we work hard to take care of our clients, and often the days can be long. We take our perks where we can get them, and working here in the Bay Area, one of the biggest is the opportunity to work with such an interesting and diverse group of companies.
At the top of that list are the trailblazers at Change.org. Launched in San Francisco in 2002 by Ben Rattray, Mark Dimas, Darren Haas and Adam Cheyer, the site hosts petitions for individuals and corporations. Since then the company has grown exponentially, cobbling together a massive user base that they use to amplify causes both large and small. They’ve become a powerful, and sometimes controversial, agent of change–both here and around the world.
By leveraging the Change.org platform, the organization’s users have put together an impressive roster of wins over the years:
In 2011, Molly Katchpole of Washington D.C. started a petition asking Bank of America to drop its sudden new $5/mo. fee for debit card customers. Over 300,000 signatures were collected, including that of U.S. President Barack Obama. Later that year, the U.S. Congress moved to examine legislation for out-of-control banking fees.
The following year, Stef Gray, a 23-year-old new college graduate in New York, petitioned student loan giant Sallie Mae to change its policy of charging harsh “forbearance fees” to unemployed debtors. Using the Change.org website, Gray collected over 170,000 signatures. In a reversal that affected outcomes for thousands of students, the company soon changed its policy and began applying those fees to loan balances.
And on a much lighter note, in November 2013, Aaron Thompson of Tuscaloosa, Alabama started a very different kind of petition: to bring beloved character Brian Griffin back to the animated TV series Family Guy. The petition was directed at Seth MacFarlane, the show’s creator, after the Griffin character was killed off in season twelve. Thompson’s petition logged 30,000 signatures within 36 hours–and the character returned to the show a few episodes later.
Today, the site claims over 200 million users in 196 countries, and other popular topics of Change.org petitions are criminal justice, education, human rights, the environment and sustainable food. There seems to be no limit to what the group can accomplish, so long as they pursue their stated mission: “to empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see.”
At C Clean, we are proud to work with a game-changing and progressive company like Change.org. Clients like this one inspire us to work harder every day, and to remember our core beliefs and why we got into business in the first place. We salute them!