A few months ago, we were pleased to announce the Change.org petition tool powered by the Salsa toolset.

Last week, Change.org took it up a proverbial notch by making those petitions widget-ready at the click of a button.

Just bang one out and embed it as easily as ... well, as easily as this explanatory video.

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Think not enough has changed?

Change.org is publicly launching its second annual "Ideas for Change in America" this coming Monday, January 25. But why wait for the public? Partners like you, me, and the Salsa-using nonprofit community can get a head start posting ideas at www.change.org/ideas.

You might want to get in at the front of the line in your issue area. Change.org says it will be giving nonprofits the email addresses of everyone who votes for their idea, so long as those users are not already signed into Change.org and do not opt out ... so there's list-building potential for everyone: the first Ideas for Change in America last year drew more than 7,500 ideas and 650,000 votes.

To participate, all a nonprofit has to do is submit an idea for a policy or program they want to see changed or implemented, and encourage supporters to vote for their idea.

Gets even better if you win. After the last round of public voting in February, Change.org will host an event in Washington, DC announcing the 10 winning ideas and presenting them to Obama Administration officials ... then promote said winners and their sponsoring organizations to more than 1 million members and 15,000 bloggers in Change.org's universe.

Question? Here's the FAQ.

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Free petition tools have long lineage on the Internet; they're one of the evolutionary forebears of comprehensive online communications platforms like Salsa.

So it was only fitting when Change.org went looking to bring the boring standalone online petition out of the Stone Age that it looked to Salsa for some tools beyond a stone wheel and a mastodon-bone club.

Behold: the just-launched Change.org petition, the most powerful online petition tool on the web.

In addition to a friendly interface that Change.org built, it's got a hook to the Salsa back end for add-ons like district-matched message targeting, so that petition signers' messages go straight to the people that need to hear them.

This, of course, comes standard with all the usual petition tools too, plus login access for the petition creator to manage the petition drive. Take it for a spin here.

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