Many of you probably remember way back to the days of those "email petition" chain letters from well-intentioned friends that used to inundate our inboxes. They never reached their target and they never had any impact.

My mother used to send me those all the time, and it would drive me crazy... so one day we threw together a little service called ThePetitionSite.com to let any individual or nonprofit start a petition, collect all the signatures in one place, and make sure they got delivered to their intended target.

About 3 weeks later, a woman from Alaska named Dorothy Keeler started a petition on the site to protect the wolves in Denali National park. The wolves didn't realize there were park boundaries, so if they wandered outside they'd get shot.  A week later, Dorothy's petition had over 1,000 signatures, so she printed them out and delivered the stack in person to the Alaska Game Bureau - helping to convince them to create a buffer zone around the park to protect the wolves.  At that point we knew we were on to something big – and since then thousands of individuals have created petitions on the site, we’ve worked with over 700 nonprofit organizations, collected over 60 million signatures, resulting in countless victories.

I tell that story to illustrate just how much has changed in the past 12 years.  The world of online advocacy and fundraising has gone from ineffective chain letter petitions to helping elect President Obama, raising millions of dollars through mobile fundraising for Haiti and Japan, and even now bringing down entire governments in the Middle East. It's been an incredible time full of innovation.

To honor those individuals using online tools to advance their causes, we created the Care2 Impact Prize, which I was privileged to be able to present this past weekend at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, D.C.

The prize recognizes someone who has made an outstanding impact on the profession of online advocacy, online fundraising or both. In winnowing down the pool of candidates to just five exceptional finalists, a panel of judges looked for individual contributions that were both measurable and influential, creating ripple effects to benefit the entire nonprofit sector. The nonprofit tech community then voted to determine who should receive the prize, which is a $1,000 cash award and an additional $1,000 donation to their favorite charity.

The five finalists were:

• Darell Hammond, CEO and Founder, KaBOOM!

• Phil Aroneanu, U.S. Campaign Director, 350.org

• Matt Flannery, Co-Founder and CEO, Kiva.org

• Joint nominees Bill Strathmann, CEO, and Katya Andresen, COO, Network for Good

• Madeline Stanionis, CEO and Founder, Watershed Company

The winner of the 2011 Care2 Impact Prize is Phil Aroneanu, U.S. Campaign Director, 350.org.

Phil helped build 350.org into an international online organization to fight global warming.  The organization helped launch over 7,000 rallies across the globe on 10/10/10 - CNN called it "the largest day of political action in the planet's history."

Congratulations to Phil!

Here's a video we did with Phil shortly after he received the prize:

Today’s Shine a Light (where we take a simple action to help someone in need) is focused on our friends in Japan.

As you know, on Friday afternoon Japan suffered an 8.9 earthquake, which was followed by a devastating tsunami. Several thousand have been reported dead, tens of thousands are missing and the threat continues as at least one nuclear power plant is in danger of a meltdown.

53,000 Care2 members live in Japan.

For today's Daily Action, please take a moment to send your thoughts and good wishes to our friends in Japan by leaving a comment below. We’ll then send these on to Care2 members in Japan to let them know how much we care.

We've got an important Shine a Light action to share with you today, but first a quick update and a big thank you for participating on our last action:

In December, we asked you to Shine a Light on Ann P. and your response was overwhelming. Close to 1,000 people left messages of hope and encouragement for Ann as she continues to battle against cancer and overcome the challenges of M.S.  Ann wanted to share this with all of you:

When Randy Paynter implemented his idea to "shine one glorious sunbeam of collective love" on an individual, he knew that a few simple words, when spoken or written with a full heart, can make all the difference in the world to the recipient. Imagine the effect when multiplied hundreds of times!

As the recipient of one such glorious sunbeam of collective love, I am deeply moved by the kind words and love flowing in my direction.

It is every bit as glorious to be part of the sunbeam as it is to receive it. Shine on!

Earlier this week, Care2 created a new service, Care2 Daily Deals, to help our members dicover great deals (up to 70% off!) on products and services that are helping to make a the world a better place. You can read my blog post on Trailblazers from yesterday.

We're excited about the first group of products and know that the power of Care2's 15 million members can make a positive impact for Good.

Make sure to check out Care2 Daily Deals.