success story
Empowering members to take global action
Environmental activism with Greenpeace Greenwire
Greenpeace Greenwire is a global online community that connects Greenpeace staff and volunteers from all over the world. The platform supports the active contribution of regional chapters and volunteers to the international environmental goals of Greenpeace.
“Greenwire is increasing Greenpeace’s reach and amplifying the power of our volunteers every day. It’s a key element of a future in which the lines between online and offline activism are further blurred.”
– Brian Fitzgerald, Head of Digital Network & Mobilization, Greenpeace International
Greenwire’s Challenges
Empowering members to create change
Global network
Connecting Greenpeace around the world
Greenpeace is an international network of over 27 independent national/regional organisations (NRO) in over 55 countries.
Each of these NROs operate in their regions with local groups, volunteers, and staff.
Greenpeace International needed an online community platform that can be duplicated and adapted for each NRO to manage their own regional community and goals, while maintaining a consistent structure across all of the organizations.
Grassroot Campaigns
Connecting and activating local volunteers
Greenpeace needed a platform that connects people online and offline, and serve as a hub for the organization to activate volunteers for grassroot campaigns.
This would include capabilities to:
- Easily sign up new members
- Facilitate volunteer data collection
- Actively support volunteer ideas and perspectives
- Create community-building opportunities
- Help staff and fundraising teams connect locally
- Establish Greenpeace presence in cities with no staff
Platform updates
Growing with Open Social
Greenwire 1.0 was launched in 2010 at a time when Open Social was still a software agency called GoalGorilla.
Over its lifetime Greenwire has needed continuous improvement as Greenwire’s needs have expanded.
In 2015 the online community needed to be updated using the newly developed Open Social SaaS platform.
Open Social’s Solution
Greenwire Volunteer Engagement Platform
Migrating from Greenwire 3.0 to Open Social
Before becoming a SaaS provider, Open Social built the Greenwire platform for Greenpeace from scratch.
When Open Social officially launched in 2016, our priority was to migrate Greenwire to our new online community SaaS software.
This allowed Greenwire to benefit from our new platform, as well as continuously upgrade as Open Social releases new features, updates and improvements.
Multi-sites
Migrating international NROs to Open Social allowed Greenpeace to benefit from our multi-site tool.
This means that Open Social can create a Greenwire community template and easily deploy and customize it for each NRO migrating to Open Social. In addition, all the platforms can be updated with the press of a button!
Currently, Open Social serves 10 unique Greenpeace NROs, each with their own Greenwire platform.
Open Social created new group types for Greenwire when they migrated to Open Social.
Flexible groups
This group type allows community members to choose how members can join groups and the content visibility options for the content inside this group.
Secret groups
This group type can only be created by site managers and no one can find the group unless they receive an invite.
The new groups flexibility allowed Greenpeace to easily manage countless local volunteer groups, each building its own micro-community within the larger Greenwire platform, while keeping organizational content accessible for staff members.
Greenwire’s power comes from its groups. Members can join local volunteer communities, as well as groups formed around specific Greenpeace initiatives, campaigns and goals.
Open Social’s flexible layout features lets Greenpeace add Content Streams, Campaign links, Events, Resources and more to each Topic or Group page.
Topics
For Greenwire Germany, Greenpeace Topic pages such as:
- Fairtrade & consumption
- Sustainable agriculture
- Climate protection
- Protection of the seas
- ... and more!
Each Topic page presents members with space that is rich with content and activity, allowing members to easily get involved with the issue at hand and drive local change.
Activating members and networks
With features such as Topics and Groups, each Greenwire community becomes a network of activities, people, events, campaigns, and useful information working in unison to drive positive environmental change.
Sharing Success
10 Years of Greenwire
The first version Greenwire 1.0 is developed for The Netherlands by the agency GoalGorilla which will later become Open Social.
Greenwire 2.0 is developed using Drupal 7 rolled out globally.
Greenwire 3.0 is successfully created with a re-design and new functionalities
Greenwire wins the prestigious Dutch Interactive Award 2015 in the category Social & Communities.
It activates 90.000 volunteers to make the world a greener and more sustainable place.
In the Netherlands alone Greenpeace Greenwire increased volunteering by 600%.
GoalGorilla rebrands as Open Social and officially launches as a SaaS company with a new product based on the Greenwire platform.
Greenwire 4.0 is rolled out as a migration to the new Open Social platform.
Greenpeace Germany and France migrate to Open Social.
Migration of 8 Greenwire national regional offices completed.
Greenpeace Switzerland and Greenpeace CEE migrate to Open Social.
The first app for Greenwire will be launched with Greenpeace Belgium being the first to use it.
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