Changents

GOOD Magazine is a big time inspiration for Changents. Since we just launched this week, I want to invite GOODers to Changents (www.changents.com). I have posted our first blog below as well because I believe it will resonate with the GOOD audience, especially social entrepreneurs.

It has been a long, pothole-filled, speed-bump packed, dust-laden, road-raging driver riddled road to get us to this debut of Changents…and this is just an Alpha. A preview of things to come, if you will. We must admit that there have been more times than we ought to mention (but this is a blog, which entitles us to spill our guts) that we have contemplated ditching the truck on the side of the road.

Without getting into every broken promise, missed delivery date, technology glitch, cash shortage, legal wrangle, family + sleep deprived state to reach this launch, we want you to know how and why we’ve crossed this first finish line. It is the same reason that we hope you become an involved Changents member and a passionate spreader of our good buzz. In short, we are committed to giving back in ways that are integral to our personal, professional and family lives…every bit of it. This commitment in no small measure involves helping other social entrepreneurs set their dreams in motion to do well by doing good. For those of you tempted to take the leap, we say “Do try this at home!” We have a hankering to share what we’ve learned from the school of hard knocks so please ping us.

Fundamentally, we share the belief that changing things for the better – be that social tragedies like human rights violations, environmental messes like global warming or crisis situations posed by natural (or man made) disasters – starts with personal actions…that become riveting stories…that can turn into mass movements. It’s just that simple.

And so, we started Changents to swing a digital spotlight onto the world’s do-gooders (we’re calling ‘em Change Agents, of course); to provide their “friends” the tools to get behind them virtually and virally; and to wipe-out any doubt about the impact of one person’s actions as those actions ricochet around the Internet. Through Change Agent Stories, Action Packs and the Ripple, we are psyched to be handing you the keys to the car (apologies if we banged it up a bit:).

Changents is not about “go hug a tree” or “chain yourself to a bulldozer” – unless, of course, you have the time and inclination do that. We don’t. Actually, there are plenty of places for people to gripe about things or talk about things. Instead, we want to be the cool, fun (and funny), free-thinking, personally-gratifying place for people who do something about social and environmental things, have a blast doing it, want to tell stories about it, and are willing to pass the keys along to others.

So, back to the point about why we hung in (through tons of shit and the more than one trip to the eighth circle of hell, frankly) to launch Changents. We have spent a bunch of energy and years working for big media “brands” that seem desperately committed to dictating the agenda and spoon-feeding their answers. And while our ladder-climbing work has been “mission-driven” (at least in name), we realized that our real mission is to help our culture dare to do what’s right by turning the platform over and letting go. So, we put it all on the line to get Changents launched so that you can also help your friends dare to do what’s right.

We want to start by laying out a few core beliefs for you that have guided us thus far and we hope may guide how you use Changents to ignite good around your story. Your beliefs may be different…that’s OK too.

1) We believe that committed individuals are the key to sparking real change in the world. No individual person can solve every problem or even a single problem in the world…but one person can sure make a tangible dent in things and rally others to make a lot more dents.

2) We believe that working for real change is a lifestyle choice. To the extent to which change IS your life, or is simply a piece of your life, is unique to you as an individual. The important thing is being part of the solution – whether that is inside or outside your comfort zone (and stepping off the ledge to found Changents was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside ours).

3) We believe that honesty and transparency will foster the most successful, pro-social community experience – by every measure. That includes opening up about our ups and downs as a company, sharing our hopes and aspirations for Changents, providing visibility into decision-making and so on. Likewise, we believe Changents should be a platform where every member feels free to share productive opinions and have those opinions respected.

4) We believe that we must be accessible to you. We are members of the community in addition to being founders of the company. We did not start a community site about football (although football, and the Green Bay Packers in particular, are precious to Alex) because it’s not THAT important to us. Making a positive impact in the world is that important. We want to do everything within our power to enable you to use Changents as an instrument for positive change. Therefore, we need to hear from you – what can we be doing better, what are we doing wrong, how can we improve your ability to create change? Hearing what we are doing right is nice too. Let us know and we’ll build Changents together.

5) We believe that as an ethical company we need to walk our talk in all aspects of our business. We also need to get behind companies whose positive values are on par with their profit-making goals. We’re just getting started and the definition of “walk the talk” will evolve. But it starts with the subtle notion that if doesn’t feel right, then it’s probably not a good decision – spiritually, ethically or from a business standpoint.

We know this site isn’t perfect. But it has been a tremendous amount of work to build this splendid little piece of imperfection. The Changents Alpha is really a small preview of many things to come…and a modest but deeply sincere first step at doing some good in the world. We are thrilled to be underway and can hardly wait to find out what you think.

Respectfully,

Deron and Alex