An online petition in 2003 pushed the Human Rights Campaign into the world of online fund- and friendraising. And the organization never looked back.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

How it started
HRC started and built its online community around a 2003 petition campaign to collect a million signatures to fight the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. According to Grams, 400,000 people signed it in the first year, and that number has since more than doubled. [HRC expects to cross the million-signature mark this year.]