Social change online

Change.org, the U.S.-based activism platform, has announced that it is acquiring Actuable, Europe’s largest online campaigning platform. The announcement follows a period of record growth in global online campaigning.

Over the last year, both Change.org and Actuable have been used to drive hundreds of prominent social change campaigns, with dozens of online petition campaigns going viral and regularly gaining the support of hundreds of thousands of people in more than 175 countries around the world.

The two platforms have almost quadrupled the size of their memberships since the beginning of the year and together expect to have tens of millions of members over the next couple years.

A Change.org spokesman clarified in a follow-up email that the U.S. company acquired Actuable. “Change.org has acquired Actuable, so as of 2012 only the Change.org brand will live on. The current Actuable team will become Change.org Spain,” Change.org director of communications Benjamin Joffe-Walt explained.

“Change.org has always been an inspiration to me,” said Francisco Polo, founder of Actuable. “Over the last few months, we realized that we share a clear vision of how to drive social change in the digital era: by empowering everyday people to create, build and win social action campaigns.”

Both platforms allow any user to start campaigns and petitions to create real-world change. While Change.org has always had international projects, acquiring Actuable more clearly solidifies Change.org’s global scope.