About Campaigns
What’s so special about campaigns on The Point?
Anyone can start a campaign to organize group action or raise money. Here’s The Point’s big idea: campaign members only act when the conditions exist for them to have the greatest possible impact. For example, donating one dollar toward a one-thousand dollar goal is a waste of a dollar if you’re the only one. But if 999 others are willing, then the goal is reached and that dollar makes sense.
The Point allows communities to use the Web to do more than talk it helps them coordinate each person’s small contribution to make big things happen. It’s an entirely new approach to collective action.
What kinds of things can I do with campaigns?
You can start a campaign on The Point to do anything a group of people might do: gather enough people for a softball game; raise money for a charity; or boycott a company to force change, to name a few. All you need to know is your goal, and what you want people to do to reach it.
Campaigns can be used to:
Persuade
Trying to get someone to do something? Use The Point to entice them with a potential reward, or threaten them with an impending reprimand.
Organize
Want a group of people to do something, but need to know that enough people will do it? The Point helps you establish safety in numbers before anyone takes action.
Fundraise
On The Point, people pledge money, but funds aren’t collected unless the campaign reaches a target amount. Because you don’t part with a dime unless it will get you what you want, The Point is a great way to raise money for a project or coordinate a group purchase.
How would someone like me use The Point?
Plan a party or boycott a multinational corporation… and everything in between.
As a consumer, employee, citizen, activist, parent, or whatever, sometimes you need to leverage a group of like-minded people to make something happen.
The Point is for more than politics and the environment it’s for the everyday issues that are too big for one person to handle alone. Turn to The Point to fix up your local park, plan a poker game, improve your situation at work, or deal with an unfair cellphone contract.
If you can’t do it alone, you can do it on The Point.
How are people using The Point right now?
- Promise to patronize a company if they do something you want
- Raise money that is only collected once total contributions reach a targeted amount
- Boycott a company once you have enough participants to force a change in policy
- Show demand for a new product or service
- Organize an event that only happens if enough people will attend
- Offer a reward to the first person to do something
What makes The Point different?
Collective Action 2.0
The Point rethinks collective action from the ground up, starting with the questions: why is it so tough to get people to act as a group, and how can the Internet make it easier?
Whatever we do, we want to feel that it makes a difference. By coordinating our actions to occur when they will have the greatest impact, The Point helps you focus your time on the stuff that matters.
Safe
The Point allows you to organize anonymously until you have the numbers to safely step forward. This innovation overcomes one of the primary barriers to organizing, particularly in the workplace.
Nonpartisan
The Point is a neutral platform - we don’t care if it organizes the overthrow of a tyrannical government or gets a thousand people to dress like zombies at a James Taylor concert. How it’s used is up to you.
Why is this a big deal?
The Internet is changing many of our long-standing assumptions about what’s possible. The traditional balance of power has favored formal organizations, but the architecture, communities and tools enabled by the Internet are redistributing a bit of that power back to the people. The Point is another step in that direction an evolving platform helping us solve problems that we had resigned to believing were unsolvable.
What if everyone who thinks Election Day should be a national holiday just skipped work that Tuesday? Or if everyone who hates their cable company canceled service at the same time? That’s the kind of world The Point makes possible, one where tiny contributions can be channeled into moving a mountain.
The Point brings collective action into the 21st century, making change more efficient and helping the masses make sense of activism.
Is The Point the best tool for my campaign?
Is The Point the best way for me to pool money?
If you answer “yes” to any of the following, The Point is a great way for you to raise money.
On The Point, no one’s credit card is charged until the campaign tipping point is reached. This reduces the risk that your money will be wasted, encouraging more people to participate.
- You’re raising money for a discrete project, and if you don’t get enough, you won’t be able to do it.
- Your audience is more likely to contribute if they know that your goal will actually be reached.
- Your goal is a bit of a long shot — you (and others) are unsure that there are enough people out there to make it happen.
- The money is being used as an incentive — you don’t want to actually give it money unless someone does something or something happens.
- If you don’t cross a certain threshold of contributions, you won’t be able to do anything.
- It’s important to your goal that each contributor become invested in success, that each of them, after contributing, goes on to recruit additional contributors.
Is The Point the right tool for me to organize action?
The Point works best for solving problems that meet one of the following criteria:
- A critical mass of participants taking coordinated action can solve the problem.
- You are using the promise of group action as an incentive for a third party to do something or to get something to happen.
- Individuals acting alone do not make a difference, making individuals less likely to act.
- It is uncomfortable or dangerous to be among the first to take a stand.
- Although the problem is shared by many people, it’s not worth the effort of any individual to solve.
