After creating your petition, we provide an easy way to share your petition on Facebook and Twitter with Change.org’s social media sharing tools.
Simply log in to your petition, and use the “Take the next step” button on the right.Choose whether you want it to be shared on Twitter or Facebook, and your petition will automatically be posted to your friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter.
We recommend using this tool frequently to get your petition the most exposure possible on Facebook and Twitter. You can also add a personal message to the post to give your followers an update.
How to Share a Petition on Instagram or Instagram Story
Take a photo, or upload an image to your Story.
In the Story editor, tap the link icon on the top of the screen (the one that looks like a chain).
Tap +URL.
Type in the URL of the website you want to link to.
Tap “Done” on the upper right corner of the screen.
Once you post your Story, your followers will be able to click the link to go to your petition and sign or share.
In addition to sharing your petition on your own social media profiles, you can:
Join Facebook groups related to your petition topic or location and share it there
Join online message boards on Reddit related to your topic or location and share
Link to your petition in the comment section of related news articles
Message influencers directly and ask them to repost
Email your petition out to former colleagues, business partners, local leaders, support groups and more.
Like sharing on social media, emailing your friends and family about your petition and asking them to sign is a great way to build support and gain signatures.
Asking your friends and family to sign and share your petition is the absolute best way to build momentum and collect signatures for your petition. Not only do they know and support you, their signatures show how important this campaign is to you and your community.
Change.org’s Petition Update tool is one of the most effective ways not only to get more signatures, but also to keep your supporters updated and encourage them to take action to win your campaign.
Angie – a mom who fought for stronger anti-bullying laws – used the tool to send petition updates to her supporters and gained the signatures she needed to win her campaign.
In the video below, Angie talks about her story and Change.org Senior Campaigner Kelly Sawyer describes how you can use the Petition Update tool like Angie to make your change happen.
Is your decision maker hosting an online conversation, or is there a Twitter conversation going on around your issue marked with a specific hashtag? To get attention from your campaign, start using the hashtag yourself to spread the word and collect petition signatures.
Example:
Online advocates used the hashtag #TooMuchDoubt to spread the word about doubt surrounding Troy Davis' Death Row sentence. When Troy's sister started a petition on Change.org, signers tweeted links to the petition with #TooMuchDoubt, making sure others following Troy's story would see the petition. Troy was tragically executed on September 21, 2011, but advocates around the world were able to change the conversation around the death penalty.
Are you fighting a longer-term campaign, one that many groups and individuals might want to tweet about? Create a hashtag for your campaign so that supporters can follow the campaign updates and talk to one another on social media.
For events and actions, hashtags should be as short as possible, and should be spread widely in advance. Abbreviations and acronyms are okay (Example: #NN15 for Netroots Nation conference 2015). For branding a campaign, hashtags can be a little longer to allow for full words, and potentially, the decision maker's name.
Example:
After learning that Facebook refused to remove pages from their site encouraging rape and violence against women, John Raines created a petition on Change.org. Facebook didn't respond to the petition, so supporters created a Twitter hashtag, #notfunnyfacebook. Facebook agreed to meet with advocates as a result. Read more about the #notfunnyfacebook Day of Action.
Review the Special Laws Regarding Petition Circulation
Residency and Age Requirements
More than half of the states in the U.S. require that petition circulators be eligible to vote in the state they are petitioning in. This includes requiring that they be at least 18 years of age and a resident of the state. The philosophy behind such requirements is that the people who circulate petitions to change state law or the constitution should have a vested interest in the issue.
Paid vs. Volunteer Petitioners & Disclosing Status
Depending on the type of petition you are launching, you may need to know your state’s laws, as well as nationwide laws on paid petitioning practices and which information you need to disclose.
Today, the vast majority of petition campaigns use paid circulators, who are paid between $1 and $3 per signature.
Several states have tried to ban payment per signature, but do permit payment on a salary or hourly basis. These restrictions have met with mixed review in the federal courts. Presently, seven states have such bans (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Oregon) and five states have had them held unconstitutional (Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio and Washington).
Learn more about state and federal legislation governing petitioners by visiting the National Conference of State Legislatures website.
Rules for Collecting Signatures at Shopping Malls and Retail Stores
Depending on your state, you may want to check where you can and cannot collect petition signatures. The right to collect petition signatures does not always extend to all commercial private property open to the public, though not clearly spelled out in state laws. Petitioners are typically encouraged to use best judgment on when and where to petition, and must not interfere with what other people are doing on the property. Certain businesses may have policies for or against permitting non-commercial, community or political activities on the property. For further information, you may wish to have legal counsel review your petition and provide guidance on acceptable locations to petition in your area.
Collect at Least 10 Signatures from Registered Voters
Depending on the type of petition you are collecting signatures for, if it is for any official local legislation change, to help make sure that each person signing your petition actually reads the proposed measure, have each signer put his or her initials on each page. You must collect at least 10 signatures from registered voters at this stage in the process. You should collect more than 10 signatures to make sure that any issues with a signature or a signer’s voter registration status will not invalidate the petition.
Each signer must also file a certificate of voter registration from the board of registrars or election commission in the town or city where the signer is a registered voter. The certificate must show the address at which the signer is registered. Each certificate of voter registration must be signed by at least three members of the board of registrars or election commission. Stamps of registrars’ or election commissioners’ signatures are acceptable.
You can collect voter registration certificates at the offices of local election officials.
Illegal Petition Signature Capturing Methods
Depending on your state, the following means of collecting signatures for a petition may be prohibited:
Offering payment to sign/not sign a petition
Coercing to sign/not sign petition
Misrepresenting contents of petition, or refusing to let signers read it
Circulating a petition not in its entirety
Forging names on a petition
Permitting one person to sign for another
Offering, seeking or receiving payment to abandon, sell or destroy a petition
Using a petition for extortion or blackmail
