What's Your Big Idea for Change in America?

Ideas for Change in America is a citizen-driven project that aims to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and 111th Congress can turn the broad call for "change" across the country into specific policies.   Ideas for Change in America is a project of Change.org and was launched  in partnership with more than three dozen partners, including MySpace, techPresident, the Sunlight Foundation, Netroots Nation, Declare Yourself, Student PIRGS, Democracy In Action, Voto Latino, HeadCount, Change Congress and ShareOurStrength.

Ben Rattray, Change.Org's founder, describes it as - "to create an open-sourced advocacy platform that identifies and then mobilizes resources around the best ideas for how to change the country."  It works like many of the competitions that have been launched recently by nonprofits and foundations.   Anyone can post an idea and then it is the wisdom crowds to vote.  But it doesn't end with the top ten ideas - they will select a nonprofit sponsor to help create nationwide movement to push the idea forward.   More details on the FAQ.

I was going to submit an idea, but decided to browse through what was there to see if it was there already and I found a better articulation of the idea and decided to vote for that.    It was posted by Jay Rosen and in a nutshell the idea is:

The Obama White House should make some smart, strategic choices to carefully frame and highlight one or two (no more than three!) such initiatives for a limited period of time to see if this method generates alternatives that may not have come to light through other means.  You can read the details at the site.

What's your big idea for change?  Go submit it.   Don't have an idea, then browse through the ideas and vote for the ones you think have promise.

Comments

[Heather]

Thanks Beth... here are my Ideas:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/president_obama_should_blog_and_social_network

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/president_obama_should_encourage_americans_to_donate_online

I'll vote for Jay's too!

[Allison @ Entry Level Living]

I submitted mine! Comment on it :-)

http://tinyurl.com/6ljr2g

[Justin]

I'm incredibly excited about what Change.org is doing and, in hopes of using this and other platforms to encourage the new admin to make stable, diverse neighborhoods a priority we're launching www.IntegrationAgenda.org on 12/1. The site is up now (it's missing tow docs, but is otherwise complete). I'd encourage anyone who wants to see a change in policy at the federal level to get involved - this is a unique opportunity.

[Nella]

Hey guys. I'm kinda new to this website, and wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I also have an idea for change: why not inspire the world through 25 random acts of kindness? This can be anything from opening a door for someone, helping people out, or even helping someone out financially. Having said all that, there's this really cool website called www.thegiftrevolution.com. It's pretty much a good way to inspire the world through 25 acts of kindness. Just wanted to tell you guys about it. Have an awesome Christmas....and God Bless you all!