Social entrepreneurs: Lead the call for change in America!

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2008-11-24 06:04:00 UTC
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Today we're celebrating the formal launch of Change.org's "Ideas for Change in America," a campaign to make sure that as President-Elect Obama takes office, your voices and your vision for change remain at the top of the agenda.

The way the campaign works is that anyone can submit an idea of up to 250 words. The ideas will be organized in around than 30 categories and between now and the end of December, people will vote on the ideas that matter most to them and that they think have the best chance of making a real difference. During January before the inauguration, the top idea from each category will be going head to head for votes and Change.org will deliver the top ten ideas directly to the Obama Administration as 44 takes office. We've already begun recruiting major nonprofit partners to sponsor those ideas and lead the citizen-advocacy effort for change.

Social entrepreneurs - whether you're the founder of an organization or just a social innovator on the side - have an incredibly important role to play. Their propensity to find opportunities and fill gaps are exactly what we need. For an example, check out my proposal to incorporate social entrepreneurship into any national service plan.

Throughout the "Ideas for Chang in America" campaign, we'll be profiling the social innovation on display - not just in the "Social Entrepreneurship" category but across all of the categories.

Open Thread for Change!

To do this well though, I'm going to need your help. I've created an Open Thread just for your ideas and your comments. When you stumble across or post an innovative idea for the competition, leave a link and a sentence or two about why the idea is innovative or important. You could find your idea profiled on this blog!

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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