How to start your own petition in 3 simple steps

When to use this resource: 

• You’re working on a specific issue and think showing broad support for your views will help
• You’ve determined there isn’t already a petition circulating that fulfills that goal, and you want to create your own petition to share

Outline of resource:

• When to start a petition
• Drafting your petition language
• Preparing your petition

Key points:

1. Starting a petition can be an easy yet effective way to show a person in charge that there’s support for an issue
2. Your petition language should include the decision-maker you’re targeting, the action you’re asking them to take, a description of the problem and the solution, and why it’s timely.
3. You may want to prepare multiple ways to gather signatures on your petition, including an online form that you could send around or share on social media and a printed petition you could take to events. 

When to Start a Petition 

There’s power in numbers, and starting a petition can be an easy yet effective way to rally members of your community around a common goal. 

Once you’ve identified the problem you want to address and what solution you think will fix it, you should determine who the “decider” is on whether that solution gets implemented, and what you need to do to get them to take the action needed. Of course, the most efficient potential way to enact that solution is to talk to the decision-maker (your elected official, your school principal, etc) and ask them to do it – they might just say yes! 

But it’s not always that easy. If you’ve already tried asking nicely and they said no, or they’re dragging their feet on taking action, mobilizing more people to unify behind the cause may be just what you need to change their minds or convince them to reprioritize. 

Drafting Your Petition Language 

Any petition* you draft should include the following: 

• Address the target of your call to action 
  • Ex: “To New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy” or “To the Mountain Lakes town council and mayor” 
• State what action you are asking them to take 
  • The call to action must identify the specific action you are asking them to take and when they need to take it
  • Ex: “We, the undersigned residents, are calling on you to pass Assembly bill A1764 before the end of the legislative session in June 2025” or “As residents and members of the Garden View homeowners association (HOA), we are asking you to implement a curbside recycling program”
• Problem
  • A couple sentences about what the problem is and why it is a problem 
  • Include one prominent fact/statistic that supports your assertion about the nature or scale of the problem 
  • Why you (and the other petition signers) care about the problem
  • Why they (the elected officials/other decision-makers) should care about the problem 
• Solution 
  • A couple sentences about the solution you’re advocating for
  • How you want it applied (in your school, town, state, etc) 
  • Note: if there is a specific piece of legislation that you’re advocating for/against, reference that explicitly in the petition language 
• Urgency 
  • What is the deadline for them to take action? 
  • Why should they prioritize addressing this now? 
• Space for signatures to be listed and relevant contact information. See below about how you may want to circulate your petition to potential signers as a Google Form or some other way for people to easily and securely add their name and any relevant information, but when you deliver the petition, you’ll want all the signers listed together. 

When creating your own petition, it’s useful to look at other petitions that have been circulated on the same topic or with similar calls to action. Even if your petition is unique, you can get a better idea of how to explain and frame your work in order to get your message across most effectively. 

You can copy this template to fill out this language structure in an online petition. 

Preparing Your Petition 

Once you’ve decided what your petition should say, you need to prepare a petition form that people can add their names to. 

All petitions should include the following fields for signers to fill out: 

• First name 
• Last name 
• Phone number 
• Email address 

Depending on who your target is for the petition, you may also ask signers to submit additional information that would be influential for your target, like which district they live in or if they represent a local group. You might also choose to include additional fields that could help you harness the people power of these petition signers later on, such as “do you want to volunteer with us?” Think ahead to how you or the decision-maker will be referencing this petition later on, and customize accordingly. But be wary of length: as you add more information for people to fill out, the percentage of petition signers who fill out the whole form tends to decrease. 

Here are some additional fields you may choose to include in your petition: 

• State, town of residence, or full residential address 
• Professional or organizational affiliation 
• Do you want to volunteer? 

Depending how you plan to circulate your petition, you may want to set it up as an online petition (using Google Forms, Change.org or something similar) that you could send around via email or share on social media, or as a printed petition page that you could easily take to events for people to sign, or both. For easy reference, here is a template for an online petition and a print-ready petition page. 

The next step is to gather petition signatures. Use this resource to help you make a plan for gathering your petition signatures. 

*Note: This resource focuses on petitions circulated as a display of public support to convince a decision-maker to act. In some states or municipalities, citizens also have the right to “citizen initiative” in which you can circulate a petition to voters in effort to pass legislation through a ballot referendum, essentially bypassing the local/state elected officials who would normally have to approve of the legislation. Because “initiative petitions” are legally binding and rules vary by state, anyone seeking to launch an initiative petition should talk to an expert in your area.