Louder Team Acquired by Change.org to Accelerate Change
By Colin Mutchler, CEO of Louder
Louder launched nearly five years ago with an audacious vision: to build a world in which regular citizens have the power to choose which voices and stories are heard.
Today, I am thrilled to announce that our team is joining Change.org - fellow social good business and certified B Corporation.
We’re excited to join a global platform of more than 120 million users creating change worldwide, and work to fundamentally transform the ways in which regular people can promote the issues they care about most.
We are witnessing a unique moment in the evolution of media and civic participation.
Commercialized culture defined the second half of 20th century America, with corporate and political brand advertising dominating mainstream television. In the social media age, however, authentic sharing and word of mouth carry more weight than interruptive banner ads and TV commercials.
We grew to love Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube because they represented a refreshing alternative to commercialized culture. Social media has given us the power to collectively decide what is valued and promoted among our communities with clicks, likes, and shares.
Like AM radio, FM radio, broadcast television, and other media before it, social media and the internet are now struggling to realize their full democratizing potential as their large scale monetization efforts mature. We need to maintain a way for authentic peer networks to influence which ideas spread, while also providing a way for platforms we love to actually make money.
Crowd-Promoted: a new way for civic media
Decentralized networks have already driven attention and funding to create awareness and demand change. So what if we applied this same theory to the medium of advertising?
Change.org’s promoted petition product allows users to chip-in so petitions are shown to other potential supporters. These petitions attract signatures from regular citizens, and then they attract grassroots, bottom-up funding from super supporters who believe these stories and ideas deserve to reach audiences beyond their usual friends and networks. And this is why I am so excited to be joining Change.org at this particular moment in the evolution of the internet and our democracy.
Change.org is uniquely positioned to continue testing and growing new business models that serve citizens directly in their efforts to create change.
Thank you to Change.org users who are speaking up and taking action for what they believe in, and I look forward to working with you to highlight stories and insights of amplifiers from different communities around the world pioneering this emerging era of crowd-promotion.
