Join the Impact

Inaugural weekend has been very exciting for Join The Impact!

Change.org, an online action network for progressive change, announced the winners of the Ideas for Change in America competition. In December we brought this contest to your attention in the post IMPACT the White House Part 2, and asked you to vote for your idea.  Among those top ten winning ideas was Pass Marriage Equality Rights for LGBT Couples Nationwide. We were invited to attend the announcement ceremony in Washington, D.C. Friday morning.

Thanks all of you who voted!

The Change.org event was about bringing together grassroots organizations that are working to make change happen in a forum where we were able to hear great ideas for using the internet to make positive changes from panelists including Chris Hughes, who co-founded Facebook and served as the Director of Online Organizing for the Obama campaign, as well as Lee Brenner, Political Director for MySpace. Additionally Macon Phillips, a member of the Presidential Transition Team, was on hand to assure us the activist community that our ideas would be heard. The energy in the room of embracing the idea of change and looking for innovative ways to grow our movement was magical.

So what’s next you ask? The top ten ideas will be featured on Change.org’s site. As we move forward to turn the idea of Marriage Equality from an idea into policy Change.org will help to foster connections between us and online communities with overlapping issues. We hope to gain much from this organization in terms of technical expertise, marketing our message, and improving the online experience of our community. Most importantly, Change.org delivers a message to the Obama transition team that the issues of the GLBTQI community are pressing issues, not just to us, but to the entire progressive political community.