Collect Signatures for Your Petition

How to collect signatures for a petition

Now that you’ve created a petition you’ll need to gain more signatures to build awareness and support for your cause. So what is the best way to do this?

We’ve laid out the best ways to share your petition with others who care about your goal to get the petition signatures you need to achieve change.

• Get campaign support from Change.org

• Share on social media

• Email your petition

• Collect signatures in high-traffic areas

• Send a petition update

• Join a conversation on social media

• Create a hashtag for your campaign

• Plan a local event! 

• Campaign to social media influencers or local celebrities

• Review the Special Laws Regarding Petition Circulation 

Get campaign support by Change.org

Change.org provides all the tools and resources you need to maximize your petition's reach. Follow the below steps to gather support online and in-person. Our tools provide easy sharing over social media, email, and more. Here's how to get started so you can collect as many signatures as possible for your cause. 

How to share your petition on social media

After creating your petition, we provide an easy way to share your petition on Facebook and Twitter with Change.org’s social media sharing tools.

Simply log in to your petition, and use the “Take the next step” button on the right. Choose whether you want it to be shared on Twitter or Facebook, and your petition will automatically be posted to your friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter.

We recommend using this tool frequently to get your petition the most exposure possible on Facebook and Twitter. You can also add a personal message to the post to give your followers an update. 

How to Share a Petition on Instagram or Instagram Story

1. Take a photo, or upload an image to your Story.

2. In the Story editor, tap the link icon on the top of the screen (the one that looks like a chain).

3. Tap +URL.

4. Type in the URL of the website you want to link to.

5. Tap “Done” on the upper right corner of the screen.

Once you post your Story, your followers will be able to click the link to go to your petition and sign or share.

In addition to sharing your petition on your own social media profiles, you can:

• Join Facebook groups related to your petition topic or location and share it there

• Join online message boards on Reddit related to your topic or location and share

• Link to your petition in the comment section of related news articles

• Message influencers directly and ask them to repost

Email your petition out to former colleagues, business partners, local leaders, support groups and more.

Like sharing on social media, emailing your friends and family about your petition and asking them to sign is a great way to build support and gain signatures. 

Asking your friends and family to sign and share your petition is the absolute best way to build momentum and collect signatures for your petition. Not only do they know and support you, their signatures show how important this campaign is to you and your community.  

Collect signatures in high-traffic areas

Making face-to-face connections with people to share your passion for your cause and load up on even more signatures. Stick to high-traffic public areas where you're  allowed to walk around and ask people to sign. College campuses and downtown areas where people work are a great place to start. Consider timing as well — you'll probably find more people out and about during lunch hours or class changes.

Change.org’s Petition Update tool is one of the most effective ways not only to get more signatures, but also to keep your supporters updated and encourage them to take action to win your campaign.

Angie – a mom who fought for stronger anti-bullying laws – used the tool to send petition updates to her supporters and gained the signatures she needed to win her campaign.

In the video below, Angie talks about her story and Change.org Senior Campaigner Kelly Sawyer describes how you can use the Petition Update tool like Angie to make your change happen.

Our top three tips for using Petition Updates to help your petition

1. Update your supporters every single time something happens in your campaign

Remember they signed your petition because they really care, so they will want to know what happens next. If you’ve got something valuable to share, send it, even if it’s every day. But at least share some news once every week.

Example:

2. There are many reasons to post an update, try to use each of these in your campaign:

• Share media coverage or news stories that relate to the campaign

• Ask your supporters for advice or contacts that will help win the petition

• Tell them when you’ve been in contact with the Decision Maker

• Ask your supporters to help your campaign in some other way, like donating to a Crowdfunder, posting on the decision maker’s Facebook page, or tweeting at them

Example:

3. Always ask your supporters to do something in support of your petition when you send an update. Here are a few examples:

• “Read and share this news article so more people hear about our campaign”

• “Leave a comment if you have ideas for how we can win the petition”

• “Tweet at the decision maker”

Example:

Is your decision maker hosting an online conversation, or is there a Twitter conversation going on around your issue marked with a specific hashtag? To get attention from your campaign, start using the hashtag yourself to spread the word and collect petition signatures.

Example: 
Online advocates used the hashtag #TooMuchDoubt to spread the word about doubt surrounding Troy Davis' Death Row sentence. When Troy's sister started a petition on Change.org, signers tweeted links to the petition with #TooMuchDoubt, making sure others following Troy's story would see the petition. Troy was tragically executed on September 21, 2011, but advocates around the world were able to change the conversation around the death penalty.

Are you fighting a longer-term campaign, one that many groups and individuals might want to tweet about? Create a hashtag for your campaign so that supporters can follow the campaign updates and talk to one another on social media.

For events and actions, hashtags should be as short as possible, and should be spread widely in advance. Abbreviations and acronyms are okay (Example: #NN15 for Netroots Nation conference 2015). For branding a campaign, hashtags can be a little longer to allow for full words, and potentially, the decision maker's name.

Example:
After learning that Facebook refused to remove pages from their site encouraging rape and violence against women, John Raines created a petition on Change.org. Facebook didn't respond to the petition, so supporters created a Twitter hashtag, #notfunnyfacebook. Facebook agreed to meet with advocates as a result. Read more about the #notfunnyfacebook Day of Action.

Plan a local event 

Create even more buzz around your petition by planning a local event. Public libraries are an excellent source to reserve free meeting space and you may even be able to advertise on their public calendars. Independent shops, such as local bookstores, are also a great place to approach, since many indie shop owners are often mission-driven to make a positive change in the world. 

Campaign to social media influencers or local celebrities

Partnerships are another strategic way to grow awareness around your petition. Search hashtags online to find social media influencers who care about your cause and could share your petition with their audience. Also check out local celebrities who may lend their voice. Look for previous speakers at local events surrounding your cause, or major donors who are listed on relevant non-profit websites.

Review the Special Laws Regarding Petition Circulation

Residency and Age Requirements

More than half of the states in the U.S. require that petition circulators be eligible to vote in the state they are petitioning in. This includes requiring that they be at least 18 years of age and a resident of the state. The philosophy behind such requirements is that the people who circulate petitions to change state law or the constitution should have a vested interest in the issue. 

Paid vs. Volunteer Petitioners & Disclosing Status

Depending on the type of petition you are launching, you may need to know your state’s laws, as well as nationwide laws on paid petitioning practices and which information you need to disclose. 

Today, the vast majority of petition campaigns use paid circulators, who are paid between $1 and $3 per signature. 

Several states have tried to ban payment per signature, but do permit payment on a salary or hourly basis. These restrictions have met with mixed review in the federal courts.  Presently, seven states have such bans (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Oregon) and five states have had them held unconstitutional (Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio and Washington).

Learn more about state and federal legislation governing petitioners by visiting the National Conference of State Legislatures website. 

Rules for Collecting Signatures at Shopping Malls and Retail Stores

Depending on your state, you may want to check where you can and cannot collect petition signatures. The right to collect petition signatures does not always extend to all commercial private property open to the public, though not clearly spelled out in state laws. Petitioners are typically encouraged to use best judgment on when and where to petition, and must not interfere with what other people are doing on the property. Certain businesses may have policies for or against permitting non-commercial, community or political activities on the property. For further information, you may wish to have legal counsel review your petition and provide guidance on acceptable locations to petition in your area. 

Collect at Least 10 Signatures from Registered Voters

Depending on the type of petition you are collecting signatures for, if it is for any official local legislation change, to help make sure that each person signing your petition actually reads the proposed measure, have each signer put his or her initials on each page. You must collect at least 10 signatures from registered voters at this stage in the process. You should collect more than 10 signatures to make sure that any issues with a signature or a signer’s voter registration status will not invalidate the petition.

Each signer must also file a certificate of voter registration from the board of registrars or election commission in the town or city where the signer is a registered voter. The certificate must show the address at which the signer is registered. Each certificate of voter registration must be signed by at least three members of the board of registrars or election commission. Stamps of registrars’ or election commissioners’ signatures are acceptable.

You can collect voter registration certificates at the offices of local election officials.

Illegal Petition Signature Capturing Methods

Depending on your state, the following means of collecting signatures for a petition may be prohibited:

•             Offering payment to sign/not sign a petition

•             Coercing to sign/not sign petition

•             Misrepresenting contents of petition, or refusing to let signers read it

•             Circulating a petition not in its entirety

•             Forging names on a petition

•             Permitting one person to sign for another

•             Offering, seeking or receiving payment to abandon, sell or destroy a petition

•             Using a petition for extortion or blackmail