Activism Platform | Take Action on Causes You Care About

In 2016, at a time that now seems quite distant, Jordan Hewson introduced a platform known as Speakable. The intention was to empower news consumers to engage with causes they felt passionate about directly while reading relevant news coverage. The company established collaborations with both news publishers and non-governmental organizations to integrate an action button directly onto publisher websites.

Now, individuals demonstrate a significantly greater level of initiative regarding the causes they support. Because of this shift, Hewson is introducing a new offering called actionable, a comprehensive resource of actions categorized across numerous causes, providing users with a straightforward understanding of how they can contribute to issues they care about.

While financial contributions are an available option throughout the platform, users can also participate through other avenues, such as volunteering their time, contacting elected officials, and signing petitions.

“Our company was established prior to the 2016 election,” Hewson stated. “Speakable was initially built on the idea that simplifying the process of taking action was crucial for encouraging participation. However, the political and social landscape has evolved considerably, and people are actively seeking ways to help. We aimed to create a platform where users could proactively discover opportunities for involvement and strengthen their community connections.”

The platform addresses a wide range of issues, including Education, Equal Rights, Environment, Health, Migration, Politics, Poverty, and Racial Justice, among others. When a user selects an issue, actionable organizes potential actions by type, encompassing donations, volunteering, and petition signing. The platform also provides detailed information about each organization’s specific mission, offering transparency regarding resource allocation.

Initially, Speakable provided its services without charge, hoping to achieve rapid expansion. Currently, the platform applies a 3% service fee to donations processed through it, though Hewson does not anticipate this being the primary source of revenue.

Instead, Speakable is forming partnerships with brands to sponsor action buttons for their own socially conscious campaigns. Hewson explained this could involve matching donation programs or sponsoring opportunities to contact legislators regarding specific issues, providing publishers with an additional revenue stream alongside Speakable, while also expanding the reach of campaigns for brand partners.

The company currently works with approximately 90 publishers and, through an API, intends to include listings for all registered nonprofits within the United States.

Notably, actionable does not prioritize or evaluate the NGOs featured on its platform, in order to maintain impartiality among nonprofit organizations, according to Hewson.

Since its founding, Speakable has secured $2.5 million in funding. It has also facilitated 10 million actions, with the majority occurring in 2020, totaling 5.2 million actions taken this year alone. Just recently, the platform processed over $1.3 million in donations in a single day to Feeding America, in collaboration with the TODAY show.

The team consists of around 15 individuals. A significant portion of the company, 60%, identify as women, while 20% identify as BIPOC and 10% identify as LGBTQI+ at this female-founded organization.