Immediate response

Sparked by China's violent crackdown on the March '08 protests and riots in Tibet, Avaaz members built the largest global online petition to date -- a call for meaningful dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama that reached 1.5 million signatures in three weeks.

The petition was delivered privately to Chinese officials and publicly in an 84-city global Day of Action, coordinated with Tibet advocacy groups around the globe. Following the outcry, China restarted talks with the Dalai Lama -- reportedly in response to international pressure Within China, however, the global protests and media attention fuelled a nationalist backlash, with state media and public opinion denouncing the pro-Tibet sentiment as "anti-Chinese" efforts to undermine the Olympics. In response, Avaaz launched a bid to "Save the Olympics", raising US $150,000 to fund online outreach by a Mandarin-language team and deliberative ads in Chinese diaspora publications.