Changents: Networking Site Turns Agents of Social Change into Rock Stars

Changents.com is unlike anything you’ve seen or experienced before. This social media startup, which has partnered with The Timberland Company, aims to use the internet and its many social media applications to connect agents of social and environmental change with a community of backers across the globe.

Where once people with great ideas to help humanity and the earth might have been at a loss as to how to begin getting people interested, Changents has made it easy and fun. Change Agents can sign up themselves or be nominated, and can then begin building a network of Changents community members who will respond to, spread, support and consume the Change Agent’s innovations and ideas.

What makes Changents so unique is the fact that they aren’t just highlighting people who effect social change – they’re providing them with a virtual army of assistants, publicity generators, fans, investors and advocates. Just a year old, the site started by entrepreneurs Deron Triff and Alex Hofmann already has dozens of Change Agents, some of whom have as many as 95 backers.

I interviewed co-founder and CEO Deron Triff about how Changents enables Change Agents in remote locations to get the word out about what they’re doing via their Changents networks, and what he’s most excited about as Changents sets to officially debut.

Deron and Alex were driven by the idea that Generation-X and –Y ‘millenials’ wanted to personally make positive changes in the world, but were turned off by traditional non-profit approaches to philanthropy. Technology has allowed today’s younger generations to connect in ways that have never before been possible, and through Changents, Deron and Alex saw a fun and exciting way to use the web to allow agents of change to be discovered and supported.

The Changents team is putting social media to work, using applications like Flickr and Twitter to help Change Agents and supporters get their message out. He says, “The idea of allowing these individuals to create a suite of storytelling tools where they can create real-time dispatches talking about what they’re doing solving social problems creating that direct connection is really inspiring – their stories are so exciting and to be part of what they’re doing is so exciting.”

Deron notes with particular pride the case of Change Agent Elizabeth Redmond, a 23-year-old self-described ‘designtrepreneur’ working on a project called ‘POWERleap’, a flooring system for high foot traffic urban areas that generates electricity through human footfall. Through Changents, Elizabeth has received backing from companies like Reverb and dozens of individuals. She describes how she wants her project to change the world on her Change Agent story page:

The POWERleap concept is meant to engage the community, you, to take responsibility and generate some of the electricity we use everyday. This interaction between our exerted energy and the electrical energy we create/consume is where my designer mind comes into practice- my job is to make it functional, mysterious, fun, interactive, educational, sexy, and satisfying; and also, to make it work! On a larger scale, my vision is to sustain urban public electrical consumption via human energy.

I am determined to create the day when we produce our own electricity by walking to work, running in the park, walking through the airport terminal, and simply playing on the streets together.

Elizabeth is far from the only environmental advocate taking advantage of Changents’ growing network of global citizens eager to help effect change. Take a look through the Change Agents and you’ll be blown away by the good that’s being done, and how many companies and individuals are supporting it.

Another great aspect of Changents is their desire to further push agents of change out into the world so that their ideas and stories reach an even broader audience. Changents aims to help the particularly successful Change Agents with compelling stories gain inroads in traditional media like documentaries, books and magazine articles through their ‘Life Story Option’.

If you know someone who’s doing extraordinary work for the greater good, nominate them to be a Change Agent. You might just help them get the big break they need to bring their innovations to the masses, and you’ll have fun in the process! You can also join Changents as a community member, and be one of the many people who enable Change Agents to do what they do best: save the world.

Link [Changents]

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