Do NOT use the donate feature on Change.org

Change.org has been a great platform and resource for collecting signatures on very important petitions. The platform has a much larger reach than similar resources, and has an infrastructure that allows you to sign multiple petitions at once. Many government agencies are using the petitions on Change.org and the number of signers to re-open investigations, like in the case of Elijah McClain’s petition with 2 million signatures.

Once you’ve signed a petition, you may notice a DONATE option on one of the confirmation pages. It is positioned to look like your donation will go to the organizers of the petition you’ve just signed. This is NOT the case. Donations will go directly to Change.org, a for-profit company.

Here is an excerpt from a Medium piece written by 130 former Change.org employees asking the company to be accountable and transparent

“The petition calls for signers to “become a hero” by “chipping in,” but these donations do not go to George Floyd’s family, or to organizations fighting for Black lives. Rather, these contributions serve to market the petition and Change.org itself via billboards and digital ads. Change.org is siphoning resources away from organizations that are accountable to Black people and equipped to do deeper, long-term, community-based organizing for Black lives and liberation.”

Your donations could also potentially be used for racist anti-black movements, as anyone can upload petitions to the open platform. There are petitions on this for-profit platform that call for Black Lives Matter to be categorized as a terrorist organization.

Because of the backlash the organization received after a substantial influx in petitions signers due to the national Black Lives Matter movement, they have tried to be only slightly more transparent about this process and have redesigned the donation feature so that it doesn’t look as deceiving. This, however, was only done after thousands of organizers and donors called the company out.

We have to be smart about where we send our money and how we support the work being done across the country. Many entities will try to take advantage of this moment. Let’s continue to keep one another informed.