Neutral. Transparent. effective.

About openPetition

Since 2010, openPetition has been helping people bring about change. As a petition platform with over 14 million users, our mission is to expand digital participation opportunities and make our democracy more accessible to everyone.

Our goals are recognized as non-profit. In order to secure them in the future, openPetition has been organized into steward-ownership since 2022.

We finance ourselves exclusively through small donations from our users. We strictly reject any influence by companies or political organizations.

Mission & Goals

Facilitating political participation

openPetition helps people to draw attention to urgent problems and to get involved in politics. We advise petition starters from the start to the handing over of their petition. The goal: make political participation easier and contribute to an active civil society. For this educational work, we regularly take part in panel discussions, lectures and network meetings.

Making politics more transparent

We inform citizens about their opportunities to participate and help them to make the best use of them. We treat each petition transparently and post updates on the petition page. In addition, we ask all elected representatives of the region for a public statement when the so-called openPetition quorum is reached.

Strengthening the right to petition

openPetition is committed to strengthening the right to petition and expanding online participation. We also demand a right to be heard in politics as soon as a petition has reached a certain number of signatures. To this end, we are in contact with political decision-makers and administrations in Germany at federal and state level as well as in Europe.

Modernising parliamentary democracy

In addition to our petition platform, we are working on projects to modernize our democracy. With the open democracy tool we also bring online petitions to the municipalities. Our HomeParliament format makes debates on current political issues more accessible. And our latest project opn.vote aims to enable secure, transparent digital voting in the future.

Principles & Values

neutrality

The topics on openPetition span the entire political spectrum. They do not reflect our own point of view. In order to promote constructive debates, we ensure that our Terms of Use are observed: Racism, misanthropy and discrimination have no place with us.

Transparency

openPetition supports the "Initiative Transparent Civil Society". Based on their guidelines, we publish a annual and transparency report with information about our goals, source of funds, use of funds and personnel structure.

Data privacy

You should be in control of your data at all times. Therefore, we make our handling of personal data comprehensible and transparent. You can read which data we collect for which purposes and how we deal with it in our data protection declaration .

non-profit

openPetition arose from a voluntary initiative and is financed 100% by user donations. We do not make any profits, but use our donations exclusively for the operation of our platform and our democratic mission.

diversity

Democracy can only work well if everyone contributes equally. openPetition promotes diversity so that everyone can get involved on our platform within the framework of our democratic order - regardless of gender, level of education, age, nationality, political opinion, etc.

sustainability

As a non-profit organization, we are aware of our social responsibility to work and operate sustainably. We ensure that millions of signatures no longer have to be collected on paper. Our servers are located in Germany and are powered by green electricity.

Our team

There is a dedicated team behind openPetition . We keep the platform running, implement feedback and develop new features. At the same time, we give tips on your petition, help with questions and with dialogue with Parliament.

openPetition makes sure that everyone has the know-how to change things. We make citizen participation easy and your concerns visible in public and in politics.

We come from very different backgrounds, but one thing unites us: we all want to promote political commitment. That's why we work together every day to make our society a little more democratic.

get to know the team

The openPetition team

Jörg Mitzlaff - worked as a software developer, IT manager and product owner at Infoseek, eBay and idealo, among others. He founded and built openPetition in 2010 and handed it over to steward-ownership in 2022. As a social entrepreneur, he wants to promote political participation in the digital space, especially for underrepresented groups.

Jessica Seip - heads the editorial team and is an expert in campaign strategies. As a cultural scientist, she was active in the radio landscape for several years before working at openPetition . In addition to our users, she also looks after NGOs and advocates for equal rights at all levels.

Cai Schultz - studied political science in Würzburg, Potsdam and Lisbon and works as an editor at openPetition . He wants to use the charitable potential of digitalization in the interests of democracy.

Tra My Lisa Nguyen - studied American Studies and Cultural Studies and became part of the openPetition editorial team after graduating. She has been involved in cultural exchange since childhood and believes that democracy must above all be inclusive - created by all, for all.

Dóra Simon - is an editor at openPetition . As a political scientist, she wants to work close to citizens and contribute to strengthening direct democratic elements and promoting civic engagement.

Jacqueline Neuwerth - studied cultural-language media and worked in public relations for cultural institutions at home and abroad. As an editor at openPetition , she wants to motivate people to get actively involved in political events and thus shape the common future of Europe.

Mara Weinert - studied politics and law in Frankfurt (Oder) and became part of the openPetition team first as an intern and then as a permanent employee. Strengthening social participation is important to her in order to consolidate democracy in Germany and Europe and to defend it against opposing voices.

Conner Defosse - develops innovative tools for political participation, while also studying urban planning. His focus is on municipal decision-making processes. At openPetition he fights for a society in which everyone can have a say.

Tobias Kraller - studies history and Chinese studies at the Free University of Berlin and wants to gain insights into participatory democratic work and discover new approaches to political participation within our society through his internship at openPetition .

Michelle Rother - hat Politikwissenschaft und Geschichte studiert. Mit ihren Erfahrungen aus der TV- und Radiolandschaft möchte sie bei openPetition Menschen dabei unterstützen, ihre Anliegen auf Social Media bekannter zu machen und demoktratisch-relevante Themen zu mehr Reichweite verhelfen.

Lorenz Lodni - studiert Politikwissenschaften an der Freien Universität Berlin. Durch sein Praktikum will er Einblicke in die Arbeit einer NGO und den demokratischen Prozess gewinnen. Er ist überzeugt, dass partizipative Demokratie aktiv gestaltet werden muss und sieht Petitionen als den besten Weg, dies zu erreichen.

Raven Wenzler - hat 2024 das Abitur abgeschlossen und im Anschluss seinen Bundesfreiwilligendienst bei openPetition begonnen. Besonders fasziniert ihn die Möglichkeit, aktiv an politischer Beteiligung mitzuwirken. Bei openPetition möchte er dazu beitragen, mehr Menschen die Chance zu geben, sich für ihre Anliegen stark zu machen.

Eva Heising - develops communication for the project Future Basic Law at openPetition . She studied journalism, communication science and psychology at the University of Bamberg as well as practical business administration in Hamburg and spent a long time in product marketing. After further training in digital project management, she initially ended up at Smart City Bamberg and thus also in the field of public digital participation.

Steven von Roden - after studying business informatics in Dresden, the software developer ended up in Berlin. Here he prefers to work with open source software and is impressed by the (musical) diversity of the city.

Hannah Schwarz - trained as an IT specialist for application development and has been working as a web developer at openPetition since August 2020. She volunteers for a non-partisan pro-European association and wishes to make Europe easier to understand.

Jochen Taeschner - studied computer science at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is convinced that social participation should not fail due to digital obstacles. At openPetition he works on improving social participation in a sustainable way.

Karina Taubert - studied English and computer science at Humboldt University of Berlin. She focuses on user experience and tidy code in software that really helps people. Since November 2020 she is a web developer in the openPetition team.

Fabian Maschler - after studying IT systems engineering, would like to use his knowledge to make society a little better and the world a little more sustainable. At openPetition , he is excited about the opportunity to increase transparency and participation for millions of users.

Steven Valyi - has been working as a web developer since 2011 and joined the openPetition team in 2023 to make the platform more attractive, simpler and thus make democracy more accessible to more people. He is happy to have found a meaningful job as a developer, away from the mega-corporations.

Jane Richthammer - completed her high school diploma in 2023 and began training as an IT specialist for application development at openPetition in September. She is looking forward to learning programming during her training and being able to advocate for democracy.

Maximilian Kortemeier - started training as an IT specialist for application development in September 2023. What he particularly likes about openPetition is that it provides easier access to politics so that every voice in society can be heard.

Ralf Engelmann - is a volunteer system administrator for openPetition . He is particularly committed to data protection and data economy. His main job is working for an internet price comparison portal.