Background
Rattray was born in 1980 in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Judy (née Mccaffrey), a county sales manager at First American Title, and Michael Rattray, Chief Executive Officer of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Barbara County.
founder Chief Executive Officer
Rattray was born in 1980 in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Judy (née Mccaffrey), a county sales manager at First American Title, and Michael Rattray, Chief Executive Officer of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Barbara County.
Rattray attended Stanford University during the technology boom of the early 2000s, studying political science and economics.
Rattray launched from his house in 2007. The site has gone through multiple iterations, starting as a social network for social activism, changing into a cause-based blogging platform, then transitioning to a petition platform in 2011. The goal of, according to Rattray, is to "change the balance of power between individuals and large organizations."
"The power unlocked when people have the capacity to more rapidly and effectively organize with others is unprecedented in human history", Rattray wrote in an e-mail to staff members.
"But what"s needed for this to be truly transformational is a solution that turns people-power from a force that is episodically realized to one that is deeply embedded in our political and social lives — something that makes people-power pervasive and sustained."
In February 2012, Rattray stated that was "growing more each month than the total we had in the first four years", with more than 10,000 petitions being started each month on the site, and that in 2011 the company"s employees had grown from 20 to 100. announced a $15 million round of investment led by the Omidyar Network in May 2013 and said its staff had grown to 170 people in 18 countries.