Cover Story: Giving Voice
The e-mail charted a course for what was to come, giving recipients who couldn't commit to hosting events a heads-up to keep an eye out for future wake-up call messages that would allow them to participate in events being organized in their areas, so they know to look for more communications.
A fourth e-mail urged supporters to attend an event.
Results, so far
The Sept. 21 event resulted in more than 2,600 events in 135 countries around the world. A Web page on the organization's site announced the success, sharing a video of footage from events around the world made from more than 10,000 pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz.org in just 24 hours. The page also enabled supporters to donate to the cause, post comments, add photos from the events, view a map of where events occurred and look at an album of event photos.
A fifth e-mail was sent out a week later to supporters announcing the success of the events. It included a link to the video of footage from the events and geared up supporters for what was to come with the campaign:
"World leaders have heard us. But as last week's UN summit showed, one day of action won't be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.
"We'll keep the pressure high through the campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on Oct. 24, and start planning right now for the largest climate mobilization in history on Dec. 12, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.
"Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward — we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.
