Neutral. Transparent. effective.

About openPetition

Since 2010, openPetition has been helping people to bring about change. As a petition platform with over 13 million users, it is our job 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.

Marcel Grenz - graduated from high school in Aachen in 2022 and has been part of openPetition since September 2022 as a federal volunteer. He personally champions democracy from below and transparency from above to ensure every voice is given the respect it deserves.

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.

Lilly Neumann - graduated from high school last year and has been doing an internship at openPetition since mid-June before starting her studies in the fall. She thinks it's important to give people an easily accessible way to get involved, so that everyone can initiate change.

David Aldave - is originally from Peru and did his Masters in Digital Marketing in Cologne. For him, democracy and tolerance are the basis of a functioning society. As the person responsible for content marketing and social media, he uses creative content to draw attention to various topics.

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 - ist seit 2011 als Webentwickler tätig und schloss sich 2023 dem openPetition-Team an, um die Plattform attraktiver, einfacher und somit Demokratie mehr Menschen zugänglicher zu machen. Er ist froh als Entwickler, abseits der Megakonzerne, einen sinnstiftenden Arbeitsplatz gefunden zu haben.

Jane Richthammer - hat 2023 ihr Abitur abgeschlossen und im September eine Ausbildung als Fachinformatikerin für Anwendungsentwicklung bei openPetition begonnen. Sie freut sich darauf, während ihrer Ausbildung Programmieren zu lernen und sich dabei für die Demokratie einsetzen zu können.

Maximilian Kortemeier - hat im September 2023 eine Ausbildung zum Fachinformatiker für Anwendungsentwicklung begonnen. Bei openPetition gefällt ihm besonders, dass ein leichterer Zugang zur Politik ermöglicht wird, sodass jede Stimme der Gesellschaft gehört werden kann.

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.