Updated at 11:06 a.m. with quotes from Change.org CEO Ben Rattray from VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference.

Popular social petition service Change.org has raised $15 million in new funding — cash that will help it further build up the “world’s largest petition platform.”

Change.org provides an accessible way to enact social change and it makes it simple to create and sign petitions. The service has grown quite a bit in the last year, jumping from 6 million users in early 2012 to more than 35 million users today. More than half of Change.org’s users are outside the U.S.

“Petitions aren’t new,” Change.org CEO Ben Rattray said today at VentureBeat’s HealthBeat conference in San Francisco. “What’s different now is that you take petitions, you make them easier than ever before and more social than ever before.”

So far, the site’s users have won “thousands of victories.” Major wins spurred by Change.org petitions include Bank of America dropping its $5 debit card fees, Seventeen magazine committing not to Photoshop models, and having felony charges against high school student Kiera Wilmot dropped.

The new funding was led by Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar created with his wife, Pam. Rattray told VentureBeat that his biggest priority was finding a funding partner who deeply believed in the company’s mission.

“We’re trying to show that it’s possible to build a technology company focused on social impact, and we now have the resources to hire the tech talent needed to demonstrate that at scale,” Rattray said. “We’ve been approached a number of times by traditional, for-profit venture capital firms interested in investing in the company, but we are only open to investment from social investors who are prepared to support that mission. … So we specifically sought out the Omidyar Network because of its unique alignment with our empowerment mission and the ability to support our scale.”

Chris Bishko, an investment partner at Omidyar Network, will join Change.org’s board.

Rattray says it will continue to help petition creators get their word out, though it does not plan on bringing in folks with industry-specific knowledge to help with those petitions. Instead, it says the best way to get your story heard is to, well, tell your story.

“Actually focusing on the direct impact on an individual’s life is by far the most impactful,” said Rattray. “You can’t win with numbers in public advocacy. … You win with stories.”

Additional reporting included by Meghan Kelly.

Top photo via Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat, Middle photo via Change.org

A growing crop of Silicon Valley startups are finding ways to make money and make a positive impact.

Change.org is one of the most successful examples. The company generates revenues through its cause-based ad model (last year it brought in about $15 million), and is arming ordinary people to strike out against perceived injustice. “If you show them that their voice matters, you can radically change behavior,” founder and CEO Ben Rattray said in a recent interview.

Change.org CEO Ben Rattray

After months of testing, Change.org is ready to launch a new revenue model that is geared to consumers, not organizations.

If you’re perusing the site and come across a cause that is particularly close to your heart — anything from a plea to Verizon to nix contracts or a campaign against Twitter to ban “thinspiration” hashtags – you can pay to promote the petition.

“This is what our users wanted,” said Jennifer Dulski, Change.org president and COO in an email interview. Dulski said the team is consistently asked how supporters and petition-creators can promote their campaigns to more people.

Organizations already have the ability to sponsor petitions, which is the primary way that Change.org makes its money. It’s not disimilar to how Facebook asks brands to pay to promote posts on the company page.

San Francisco-based Change.org has grown to 35 million registered users around the world, and its petitions often garner thousands of signatures. Generally speaking, the more signatures a petition receives, the more likely it is to catch the attention of the press and/or key decision-makers.

Related: Change.org CEO Rattray will speak at HealthBeat, our San Francisco-based conference on May 20 & 21, on the topic of consumer-driven health care reform.

By targeting consumers, the team expects to pull in steady revenues in smaller dollar amounts. Contributions are capped at $1,000 per user per petition, but beta tests found that 98 percent of contributions were under $100. During the test period, a total of 5800 people contributed to promoted petitions.

Change.org’s ad-based business model has been critiqued in the press. Clay Johnson, author of “The Information Diet” told the Wall Street Journal he has “huge problems” with the site as it is a “lead-generation business disguised as a social-change organization for whoever is willing to pay them for the email addresses.”

But Change.org is proud of its B-corp status; Rattray recently told me that unlike most non-profits, the company can afford to hire the best talent.

Has Change.org crossed the line between change-making and profit-making? Leave feedback in the comment section below. 

Images at Change.org office // Christina Farr

The White House has raised its requirements to make it more difficult to get a response on user-generated petitions today.

The White House’s “We The People” tool allows U.S. citizens to create their own petition to the government. Previously, President Barack Obama’s administration promised a response to any petition that gained 25,000 signatures (up from just 5,000 when the tool debuted) within 30 days of creation. Now, petitions need at least 100,000 signatures in the same time frame.

“When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it ‘a good problem to have.’ Turns out that ‘good problem’ is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve,” wrote White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips in a blog post.

The decision comes just days after the White House responded to a petition asking the government to build its own Death Star, the planet destroying mega-ship from Star Wars. That particular petition brought in 34,435, which was enough to get a response, but far short of the new requirement.

The White House also released lots of statistics about the “We The People” tool as evidence of why the signature threshold had to be increased. For instance, the administration said it took successful petitions an average of 18 days to hit the 25,000 mark during the first 10 months of 2012. However, it only took nine days to reach the threshold for petitions during November and December, the White House said. (For more statistics about the We The People tool, check out the White House’s infographic below.)

But increasing the signature threshold isn’t the only thing the White House plans to do with the tool. It also announced plans for an open API, released the source code for the petitioning tool, and invited engineers to reach out to them if they wanted to help.

Via The Verge

When a petition to secure resources, funding, and begin construction of a Death Star — the planet destroying mega ship commissioned by the Empire in Star Wars — gained the necessary signatures for a formal response from the White House, most people probably figured the Obama administration would offer up a simple “nope”.

But as the administration sees it, a ridiculous request deserves an equally ridiculous response.

In a letter titled “This Isn’t the Petition Response You’re Looking For” (a play on words from a classic Star Wars quote), the White House proceeded to lay out a rough cost for building a Death Star, state its position on the destruction of planets, and pose questions about the project’s worth to American tax payers:

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

The response to the petition is not only littered with references to the classic movies, but it also takes care to highlight the administration’s support for the International Space Station — saying this is already sort of the project that’s been requested, minus the massive scale, world-shattering weapons, and armada of TIE fighters. If you have a moment to check it out, it’s actually very clever.

And if you’re wondering why our elected officials are devoting resources to this type of silliness, then you’ve probably not checked out the White House’s official website. The site allows citizens to petition the government about anything (obviously, anything), and promises a response to any petition that reaches over 25,000 signatures within 30 days.