What we are thinking:

What if you could build a company whose product was "good"? Some companies make car stereos or scented candles or frozen tater tots. But how might a company produce "positive social change"? Lots of companies make things that could somehow be used by others to create good, but what about a company whose very function was to create as much good as possible? Could such a company give its employees the satisfaction of working to save the world, as well as the same robust salaries found at comparable for-profit companies? If we were to prove that both of those things could be achieved at once, what implications would that have on the business world? When our personal values conflict with the economic imperatives of business, many of us are forced to choose between feeling empty as we get rich, or choosing a meager income in order to do something that makes us happy and fulfilled. Can we create a third path?

Humanity currently faces a number of urgent problems in need of big, innovative solutions. The power of the business world is vast....what sorts of solutions can we create to harness that vast power and steer the resources of the business world towards a sustainable future? What if activism is an emerging market? If a for-profit company did the type of work that non-profits often do, but did it more efficiently, would people trust it the same way they trust non-profits? What if everything the company did was completely transparent? What if it was open source? If we can create this kind of company, and succeed, how many other companies would follow our example? Along the way, could we change the face of the business world itself?

Those are some of the questions we are here to answer. That's the way we think about Virgance.

A few assorted things that we will do:

Take all of our financial data (salaries, budgets, revenues, etc.) and post them publicly online.
Build social web applications on top of a platform that auto-deploys our apps to Facebook, MySpace and other open social platforms.
Work to amplify the power of our large network of passionate users.
Find ourselves not even bothering to make moral arguments in favor of sustainable business because our economic arguments will have already won the debate.
Make mistakes in an embarrassingly public way, and then use the public feedback to learn more from each mistake than any other company.
Make activism and civic engagement more fun, more effective, more social, and more widely embraced.

Why now is a unique time in history for Virgance

The way our world currently works is not sustainable. That statement is left purposefully vague, because there are many different ways to measure sustainability, and we're interested in all of them. No matter which angle you're interested in, it's becoming more and more clear that there's a global emergency, and that the world is finally paying attention to it. People are clamoring for solutions. This emergency is one of many reasons that young people are becoming more engaged in civic issues. Most people are not yet bending over backwards to create a sustainable society, but in situations when it's possible to do something in easy ways that don't require bending over backwards, people are taking action. The types of activism that Virgance is working on will enhance the power of committed activists but, more importantly, they will be accessible enough to appeal to people who are just figuring out that they themselves might be activists too. We're removing the barriers to entry for the activism space, and optimizing the types of actions that a global crowd of activists can take. Meanwhile, the events of the world are creating more activists every day. New activists demand new methods.

Simultaneously, we are experiencing another world-changing transformation on the web. In a tidal wave that has swept up high school kids and middle-aged businessmen alike, social networking sites (like Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, MySpace...) have grown to include over half a billion people, and have changed the way we communicate, organize and manage our online and offline lives. These sites have already grown large, but their potential to be used as change agents is still in its infancy. People have always been able to organize themselves, but online social networks have now made it possible to do it quickly, cheaply and more effectively. We're embracing the opportunity to take small movements and use social networks to scale them up into big movements with a global reach. In short, we think of Virgance as "Activism 2.0".

What we do

Virgance is a for-profit company that takes new activism ideas and uses the power of online social networks to scale each idea into a large-scale, citizen-powered global campaign to improve the world.

What does the word Virgance mean?

Virgance (noun) - the birth of a powerful new force in nature that can be used for good or for evil.
coined by George Lucas
[Star Wars 1 - The Phantom Menace]

Yes, our company is named after a Star Wars reference. Yes, Steve is a nerd. Now lend us your ear as we tell you this tale: When Qui-Gon first encountered Anakin Skywalker he stated, "I have just felt a Virgance in the force." This means that he recognized in Anakin a powerful new force and he knew that it had the potential to be good or evil.

This doesn't mean that we will turn out like Darth Vader, and it definitely doesn't mean that we are your father. It means we recognize that online social networks are a powerful new force. The power that they hold can be used for good or evil, and our name challenges us to always find new ways to use this power to do good.