Today, 350.org was cited in a "Web Thinking Manifesto" as as an example of "an organization that seems to consistently and dramatically win online."

And while we at 350.org pride ourselves on real-world activism and always work towards transitioning people from the web to the streets, we were honored and humbled to be in a list of online campaigns as game-changing as the Obama campaign and the Basta Dobbs initiative.

The writers of the "Web Thinking Manifesto" (full disclosure–both are friends and colleagues of ours at 350.org) outline "ten proclamations for the next generation of movement leaders."  Each of these ten proclamations are provocative for people that work to harness the power of the internet for social change–but the one 350.org is cited for is "Proclamation #6: We Will Let Go of Control."

We will try to be open and ego-free, and to give our campaigns away. We will trust our supporters with important work – as important as that performed by staff. We will prioritize building systems that enable our audience to carry out our mission, over building departments for doing that work on our own. We will consider it a sign of success to see our brand or message distributed far and wide in ways we could never anticipate. We will add value by providing frameworks, clear theories of change, and even leadership training and empowerment, rather than detailed recipes. The movement adds value by iterating, improving, and innovating on that framework.

Amen.  At 350.org, we find ourselves letting go of control at nearly every turn–as much by necessity as by choice.  Organizing in 180+ countries and dozens of languages is, on a very practical level, impossible to do top-down.  There's simply too much to do, and not enough staff-hours/time/resources/energy to to it.

But the benefits of learning to let go become clear as soon as you look through the photos in our Flickr account. There, you'll find a broad, diverse, self-sustaining movement united by a common mission.  It seems that certain lessons apply just as well to movement-building as they do to of friendship and love: the more we give away, the more we get back.

Which is why I couldn't be more excited about our plans for 2010.  We've got lots of fun stuff in the works to push the boundaries of our open-source, control-relinquishing approach–think wikis for organizers, modular graphic design packs to enable infinite customization of posters and materials, and perhaps most of all, an totally undefined day for local organizers to turn their dreams of a 350 future into a reality.  We expect 10/10/10 to be full of surprises that we can't quite control–nor would we want to.  Controlling it would ruin all the fun.