We The People: Using Glitch for Activism
A roundup of Glitch projects and other resources to help you share data, organize supporters, gather information, and find allies.
The Internet is a powerful tool for uniting people around an important cause. But sometimes finding the quickest or easiest way to get a website online or even gather emails for a mailing list can be a daunting task. Let Glitch take your civic organizing efforts to the next level! Here’s a look at a few helpful and useful apps that you can remix and modify to fit your needs.
Activate Your Mailing List
Email has its pros and cons, but it is still an effective and easy way to reach an audience. We like MailChimp as an email service provider for its ease of use, and we’ve made a starter app that will allow you to collect emails, and automatically subscribe people to a MailChimp list! Sign up for a free MailChimp account, follow the steps listed in this project’s README.md, and you’ll be ready to send emails to your supporters in a matter of minutes. Remix this app and customize it for your mission or cause!
Collect Deets From Your Community
Do you need to collect emails using an online form, but don’t have an email service provider yet? Or do you use a different email service provider besides MailChimp? Don’t fret — here’s where remixing apps on Glitch comes in handy. Software developer Lauren Dorman remixed our MailChimp Starter app and created a Google Sheets Starter, which stores emails and names in a handy spreadsheet. From here, you can download the data as a .csv file and upload it to any email service provider out there. All you need is a Google account, and you’re ready to roll!
Find out your Local Official’s Policy Positions
The team at Campaign Zero is dedicated to helping people take direct action to end police violence. We’ve brought their homepage widget to Glitch for easy embedding onto any website. Just enter your address, and you’ll find your elected officials at the local, state and federal levels, as well as their positions on key criminal justice reform policies. Email and telephone numbers for these elected officials are also shown, which is useful if you want to take your advocacy efforts further. Remix the app and customize it to your liking!
Discover Other Digital Activists, and Join Them
Even if you need to create a simple landing page, you can make it happen on Glitch. Take a look at Tech Forward, a Glitch-powered website with dozens of links to tech-focused advocacy organizations and nonprofits working for social change. You can remix this to show a list of endorsements, or display companies that support your cause.
We’ve included links to these apps and more on our Peoples Response page. Get started today and make something great to help make a difference. It’s time to take action!
