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New Year Poll: Setting the Agenda for 2010

Thanks for taking a minute to help set the course for Avaaz's future. As a people-powered movement, it's up to all of us to set our priorities and make overall decisions. This poll goes into some depth -- feel free to skip questions if you don't have enough time. Every answer makes a difference!
1.Avaaz's mission calls us to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want. There are many such gaps, and we can only work on one or two of them each week -- so a shared sense of priorities is vital in choosing where to channel our energy. Please rank the general issue areas below in order of priority from 1-6, with 1 being the top priority for us to campaign on:

1 (top priority)
2
3
4
5
6 (lowest priority)
Human rights, torture, genocide, human trafficking
Democracy movements and tyrannical regimes
Climate change and the environment
Corruption and abuse of power
War, peace and security
Poverty, disease and development
2.In 2007 and 2008, we campaigned intensively on a broad range of issues. In 2009, in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit, Avaaz members chose to focus heavily on climate change. How should we approach 2010?
3.All of our campaigns are made possible by the size, strength and commitment of our community, so it makes sense to invest in our own capacity to make change. On a scale of 1-5, which do you think are the most important goals for all of us as a movement and an organization in 2010 (with 1 being the highest priority and 5 the lowest priority)?
1 (highest priority)
2
3
4
5 (lowest priority)
Improving online fundraising to provide the essential funds to support and scale up our campaigns
Spreading the word about Avaaz so that more media, people and politicians know about our work, and our influence is increased
Growing the size and scale of the Avaaz community dramatically, with more members and campaigning in more languages
Deepening the engagement of the existing community, with richer forms of participation and contribution
Continuing to move from online activism to offline -- with more offline actions, stunts, vigils, flashmobs and other events
4.Avaaz members have already suggested a wide range of specific campaigns for next year. Check the box only if you feel *very strongly* that we should run this campaign:
5.Here are some possible "big ideas" for 2010. What do you think of each of these? Please rate on a scale of 1-5, with 1 for ideas you strongly endorse and 5 for ideas you dislike. (If you're pressed for time please feel free to skip this question!)
1 (great)
2
3
4
5 (dislike)
Not sure
a) Innovation: New Tactics & Strategies
Traditional advocacy uses a specific set of techniques - like protests, sending messages, ad campaigns, and petitions. In 2010, Avaaz should invest and innovate a whole new set of techniques that can impact the issues we care about -- sting operations to expose crime and political or corporate corruption, citizen-funded investigative journalism to shed light on crucial issues the media ignores, and direct actions like running humanitarian aid into Burma or Gaza. This will require funds and a larger team, but it will increase our impact and strengthen our movement while capturing public imagination.
b) Tackle the World's Silent Crises
Avaaz traditionally campaigns on issues that are at the top of the news and people's minds. But some of the world's worst issues don't grab headlines. In 2010, Avaaz should have some focus on issues far from the headlines. One of the biggest: human trafficking, or the 'rape trade', in which 15 million women are currently kidnapped in poorer countries and sent to rich countries to be forced to be raped many times a day to earn money for their kidnappers. Avaaz could invest significantly in a global campaign on this issue, supporting legal reform, exposing complicit governments, and running sting operations on the rape houses.
c) Radically Increase our Size
Much of the strength of Avaaz comes from our numbers. We're at almost 4 million now, the largest global group of our kind in history. But what if we could reach a much, much larger scale? Through efforts by members to tell friends, new technologies like Facebook and Twitter, partnerships with key media outlets, and expansion of our campaigning into new languages and areas, we might dramatically increase our size, multiplying our impact in other areas.
d) Build a Powerful Base of Sustainers
Every big idea here will cost money, as does all Avaaz campaigning, but to stay true to our mission we won't accept money from governments, corporations, or corporate-linked foundations. Currently Avaaz members donate to specific campaign objectives and we have a tiny global team of just 24 people. But Avaaz has millions of active members -- if just 200,000 (5%) of us donated $2 (the price of a cup of coffee) per month, we'd raise $5 million a year to empower everything we do. To achieve this, we could launch an effort in 2010 to ask 200,000 of us to become 'sustainers'.
e) Avaaz Global News
With almost 4 million subscribers, the readership of Avaaz is as big as many of the world's biggest news publications. Given this, we might try operating more like a media organization, and serving members not just with action-oriented emails, but also emails with important news, insightful analyses and other essential information for global citizens.
6.How confident and optimistic are you about the impact of people-power on the world in 2010 and beyond?
7.Do you have any last comments, thoughts or ideas you would like to share with us (optional)?