Ch-Ch-Ch-Change.org

I just checked out change.org, thanks to a tip from e.politics. So far, I'm fairly impressed - they are a social networking site for people interested in nonprofit issues and recently they added a section for political candidates because they want to help level the playing field there. The site's fresh and clean, and the nonprofit listing pages remind me a little of Orkut's groups.

It groups nonprofits by the changes they aim to affect, labeling them most often with action verbs like "stop global warming", "save darfur", "separate church and state", and "protect wildlife". You can search by category, like 'animals' and in there, search by specific change like "stop puppy mills" and there you'll find recommended nonprofits that are related. You can also search by nonprofit or by politician like many other social networking sites. What's really cool is you can provide recommendations for politicians on certain issues, and you can write reviews about nonprofits.

Each organization has an 'About' section, reviews, supporters, photos, videos, news, volunteering/action and fundraising areas. Discussions take place within the nonprofit pages - some are calls to action; others contain event information. They partner with JustGive - a 501c3 that passes along the contributions to the nonprofits as allocated. So far they've raised over $36,000. It will be interesting to see how they take off with their political area and how the site is primarily utilized in the long term. I plan to play around with it a little more and see if it sticks for me. I had a few problems using it and I have yet to determine whether it was my browser or their code causing the problems, but in general I like the site and the concept.