DP Grad Gains Fame

By Michael Aling | Staff Writer | May 22 2012

DP grad makes 2012 Time 100 Most Influential People list. Petition sites are proving to be a powerful tool for change, and Change.org is at the head of the charge, led by 1998 DP alum Ben Rattray.Everyone knows that Dos Pueblos was Katy Perry’s high school, but DP alum don’t limit themselves to becoming pop stars. One of our graduates is now a member of the 2012 Time 100 most influential people in the world.Ben Rattray, like many others in America and around the world, wanted things to change.  And the 1998 DP graduate also understood the power of a petition signed by thousands.

On this basis, he founded Change.org, a for-profit company that has grown from just 20 employees to more than 100, operating on 4 different continents.

Although numerous petition sites exist, Change.org is simple, easy to use, and effective; several of its calls for action have actually initiated major change.

These successes range from a public veto of Bank of America’s planned $5.00 monthly banking fee to helping secure Hillary Clinton’s support for women’s driving rights in Saudi Arabia.

The uses for Change.org are many and varied: take, for example, a classful of fourth graders who were outraged about the lack of an environmental message in the preview of The Lorax.

Fearing that the movie would also be lacking, they started a petition that garnered 57,000 signatures, asking that the movie remain true to the book.

An executive at Universal Studios responded to the petition, and the requested changes were made, almost exactly in keeping with what the fourth graders had suggested.

(Change.org)

“I started this journey because I had little way of translating my passion for a cause into effective action,” Rattray states on his Change.org profile. “I hope we can deepen engagement in social issues and empower people to make a difference in their communities and the world around them.”