
Causes Acquires Votizen To Democratize Democracy - massarog
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/10/causes-acquires-votizen/
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alttab
I have a friend that works at Causes and after catching up with him in San
Fran for some drinks I was amazed at the level of impact they have. The Sandy
Hook Sympathy card, which harnessed the power of their platform was quick-to-
action and has captured 2,536,431 signatures so far.

While Sandy Hook was a tragedy, it proves the reach that Causes has and can
definitely help be a launch pad for the tumultuous future in politics in
America and around the world.

Turning the capture of attention that Causes has into a source of political
candidate data and actionable metrics for their audience seems like a critical
step into turning angry online voices into voter turn-out. Using social
networking which takes less money and time to spread a message is one of the
best utilizations of our technology that I've seen so far, and definitely far
nobler (Sorry, FarmVille).

Great job guys, and its great to see startups coming out of San Fran that are
a little less frivolous and a little more impactful on what could be a very
dim future for democracy. Take the wind out of the SuperPACs!

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HistoryInAction
Interesting to note that DemandAPlan had gotten 80k or so signatures on a
similar call to action, but when the tech community got involved in pushing
the Sandy Hook card, it really took off.

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jdunck
Hey all, I was an early eng at Votizen, now coming up to speed w/ Causes. I'm
happy to answer any questions you have.

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danielpal
Everything I read from the article makes it sound like you guys are a non-
profit or at least run it as such?

Do you guys have plans or expect this company to ever monetize?

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kristjan
[Former Causes employee]

I always liked the term not-just-for-profit.

Congrats on the merge, guys!

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thomson
Echoing Kristjan and Jeremy's sentiments here.

It's a very fine line to walk in finding the intersection of public good
through individual empowerment and corporate sustainability through
partnerships with CSRs and non-profits. And then there's the challenge of
doing this in a way that doesn't breach user trust and privacy in data.

No one doubts our heart's been in the right place but what's exciting now is
proving out that our business acumen's in the right place too.

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mtgx
Is that really a good idea? To enable Facebook to know who you are voting for?

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jdunck
Causes is not Facebook.

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Wingman4l7
I think the OP might have meant that more in the sense of a social network /
public internet site.

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jdunck
Ah, well for sure your privacy decisions are your business. I personally am
careful what I choose to share. If you feel that sharing your political views
is dangerous or damaging or what-have-you, that is your choice, but you are
also removing yourself from an important (personally, morally, globally)
discussion.

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askedrelic
Congrats to the Votizen team! Great group of engineers who have contributed a
great deal to Django and Python.

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jdunck
Thanks, Matt. :)

