WASHINGTON, DC -- (Marketwire) -- 01/16/09 -- Change.org today announced the winners of its Ideas for Change in America competition at an event at the National Press Club and attended by nonprofit leaders, grassroots activists, and members of the Obama campaign and incoming administration.

The competition was the first nationwide grassroots response to President-elect Barack Obama's call for greater citizen participation in government, and since Election Day more than 650,000 votes have been cast for more than 7500 ideas for how the Obama administration and 111th Congress should change America.

The 10 winning ideas reflect the diverse interests of the millions of people calling for change across the country, including ideas for securing universal heath care, LGBT rights, and sustainable green energy. The list of winners also includes ideas often left off of the national agenda but with powerful grassroots support, including those for restoring civil liberties, ending the prohibition on medicinal marijuana, and advancing peace through new government institutions. All winning ideas can be viewed at www.change.org/ideas.

The ideas were accepted on behalf of the transition team by Macon Phillips, Director of New Media for the Presidential Transition Team, who spoke about the importance of citizen-led efforts like Ideas for Change in America for increasing civic participation.

Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org, followed the announcement by introducing the launch of a national advocacy campaign behind each winning idea in partnership with leading nonprofit organizations, including 1 Sky, Health-Care NOW, and The Peace Alliance.

"The crowd-sourcing of ideas through a nationwide voting process was only the first half of this project," explained Rattray. "The second half will focus on mobilizing the grassroots energy behind each idea to translate it into policy. Our intention is not for these to be mere suggestions for the administration, but to represent an agenda for change that we will help drive within the administration and Congress over the next year."

After the announcement, the event featured a panel of leading thinkers on how the government, nonprofit organizations, and grassroots groups can take lessons from the Obama campaign and initiatives like Ideas for Change in America to deepen civic participation. The panel was moderated by Jose Antonio Vargas of the Washington Post, and featured Chris Hughes, Director of Online Organizing for the Obama Campaign, Joe Trippi, political analyst and campaign manager for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, and Lee Brenner, Political Director for MySpace.

MySpace was a lead partner in the competition, which launched in late November, and its members were able to post ideas for the competition directly through the site.

"It's exciting to be part of such an extraordinary initiative to engage the American public through MySpace and encourage our community to share their passions and ideas for change with our new presidential administration," Lee Brenner, Political Director for MySpace. "Our goal with this project is to truly democratize democracy and we hope that the Obama administration will continue to leverage tools like MySpace in order to keep a pulse on the American public."

ABOUT CHANGE.ORG

Change.org is an online hub and media network for social issues and collective action. The San Francisco-based social entrepreneurship venture operates a network of blogs covering more than a dozen major social issues and has partnered with more than 3000 leading nonprofit organizations to provide outlets for powerful action. Change.org was founded by two former classmates from Stanford, Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas, in 2006.

ABOUT MYSPACE

MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. MySpace has created a connected global community by integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums. MySpace's international network includes more than 30 localized community sites in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, India, Japan, and New Zealand. Fox Interactive Media is a division of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS - News, NWS.A - News; ASX:NWS - News, NWSLV - News).

Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, September 2008. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to www.comscore.com.

ABOUT MYSPACE IMPACT

MySpace IMPACT's goal is to empower users to make a difference in the world by building partnerships and programs focused on voter education, voter registration, and voter turnout. To educate MySpace users about candidates and issues, the company teamed up with MTV in the primary season to produce a series of highly interactive candidate town hall events geared toward young and first-time voters called the MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogues; partnered with NBC News and msnbc.com to deliver high-quality election coverage and citizen journalism opportunities to users through a hub called Decision08; and worked with the Commission on Presidential Debates to power MyDebates.org, the official online companion to the Presidential Debates. MySpace IMPACT's online voter registration is powered by the non-profit nonpartisan organization Declare Yourself.