Using Meetup.com, a publicly accessible and open community organizing tool, a half-million American citizens conducted over 25,000 official political Meetups during the 2003/2004 national election cycle. Other tools, largely inspired by Meetup, were used to enable thousands more political gatherings. While voting levels increased an impressive 15-20 percent, grassroots activism skyrocketed several hundred percent.

The question now is whether this new level of active participation will carry over into areas of ongoing involvement in governance and policy development.

Meetup has formed a new advisory council to explore and encourage the underlying phenomenon of rising citizen participation in governmental and electoral processes. Click here for a PDF of political Meetup statistics from the US 2003/2004 election season.

• 
  Don Means, Chair

  • Senior Political Advisor, Meetup
  • Founder/Principal, Digital Village Associates

  "Providing the catalyst to transform grass roots politics and ushering in a new era of participatory democracy was not the intention of Meetup's creators, but as with many great inventions, users employed it in unforeseen yet world changing ways."

• 
  Manuel Castells

  • Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society, University of Southern California

  "Meetup represents one of the most innovative initiatives in revitalizing democracy by tapping the potential of new communication technologies. It helps to enable citizens to make their voice heard, and to organize on their own grounds, not against formal politics, but outside formal politics. So doing, Meetup greatly contributes to undo the rampant crisis of legitimacy that is deteriorating the quality of political life around the world."

• 
  Carol Darr

  • Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet

  "Meetup was early to the political Internet revolution, and has been a key player in the devolution of political power from political elites to interested citizens. By providing a welcoming environment for neighbors to meet face-to-face on issues and candidates that they care about, Meetup has reconnected to politics people who have been estranged from party organizations. Meetup makes political participation comfortable and convenient, and that has made all the difference."

• 
  Chuck DeFeo

  • eCampaign Manager, Bush-Cheney '04
  • Director of Online Strategy, Salem Communications

  "The people at Meetup were one of the first to recognize the potential of the Internet to not only connect people across the globe but to enable them to reconnect with their local communities. They have been leaders in the resurgence of civic involvement and enabling neighbors to rebuild relationships with their neighbors.."

• 
  Tim Draper

  • Founder, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

  "Meetup is an amazing solution to the problem that we all have in personally physically connecting since email and web browsing and video took over our lives."

• 
  Jane Fountain

  • Director of the National Center for Digital Government, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

  "Around the world, political participation is increasingly taking place using online tools and applications. The potential and implications of these new forms of political activity are enormous yet barely understood by researchers or political experts. The National Center for Digital Government is delighted to work in partnership with Meetup.com to develop much needed research and understanding of these new and powerful tools."

• 
  Phil Noble

  • Founder, PoliticsOnline

  "Meetup is truly unique - it is a 'big idea' with global impact. It has the potential to literally change the way the people of the world engage in politics, and lots of other issues. The power and impact of the Internet in politics globally is growing every day and ability to combine this impact of online organizing with face to face meetings is nothing short of staggering."

• 
  David Rejeski

  • Director, Foresight and Governance Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center

  "Meetup is proof that networks can change our lives, our politics, and the very nature of our social interactions. I am fascinated with the potential of networks to solve the more intractable problems facing us that markets and failed government cannot adequately address."

• 
  Christine Williams

  • Professor of Government, Bentley College

  "The Internet came of age in the 2004 Presidential nomination contest. And it was not in the expected role of a new medium of communication destined to supplant television. Instead, the Internet proved its worth as the high tech equivalent of pre-television one-on-one campaign techniques long used by political parties to mobilize support for their candidates, largely through Meetup.com."