Editor's note: This article was published in July 2021, and has been updated in June 2025 to reflect our latest impact. 

Eliminating extreme poverty. Ending hunger. Achieving true equality for all. Mitigating the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change. All these goals might seem daunting or even impossible at first, but it’s crucial to remember that the resources to achieve all these aims exist — the challenge is distributing them and channeling them effectively. 

But under significant pressure from citizens everywhere, governments, businesses, and philanthropists can be persuaded to mobilize the funds and resources needed to end extreme poverty worldwide. 

This is the belief at the heart of Global Citizen’s mission. 

We harness the voices of everyday citizen advocates to encourage world leaders to make commitments to defeat poverty and defend the planet.

But the only reason we’re able to inspire these commitments is thanks to the collective power of Global Citizens everywhere who are “taking action.” 

What Does "Taking Action" Actually Mean? 

Advocacy has an important role to play in tackling the world’s greatest challenges and can take a number of approaches. Global Citizen’s “action-taking” advocacy model is one that empowers the voices of everyday citizens and activists while complementing the essential work of on-the-ground organizations that directly feed and house families, educate children, address the climate crisis, and more.

“Taking action” involves performing relatively simple acts that together add up to tremendous collective power to shape the world we live in by calling on world leaders, philanthropists, and the private sector to do more and do better.

You can take actions with us by signing petitions, taking quizzes to learn more about global issues, contacting your political representatives, digitally targeting decision makers, sharing social media posts, and sharing images and videos of yourself standing up for the issues you care about. 

How Do You Take Action with Global Citizen?

The best way is to download our app, register as a Global Citizen, and start taking action right away. With the app, you’ll also get exclusive access to our lifestyle challenges to help you make the changes you want to see in your own life too — like going vegetarian to help reduce your carbon footprint, or going plastic-free to help cut down on the world’s plastic pollution. You can also sign up as a Global Citizen and take action on our website — head here to find our “Take Action” page. Lastly, you can also take action right from your phone using WhatsApp — find out how here.

But what goes on behind the scenes to encourage a political or corporate leader to make a pledge through the Global Citizen platform? Let’s take a look.

How Does Global Citizen’s Model Drive Commitments for Change?

Our policy team works with experts and on-the-ground organizations to develop the advocacy plans needed to eliminate extreme poverty. A key part of this process involves identifying governments, corporations, and foundations that could be influenced to make policy, financial, and other commitments toward these issues and then amplifying the actions taken on our site to demonstrate to world leaders that people everywhere care deeply about defeating poverty and defending the planet.

You can learn a lot more about how Global Citizen uses advocacy to drive sustainable impact in our in-depth explainer here.

How Does Global Citizen Make Sure Pledges Are Actually Delivered? 

For Global Citizen’s team of impact managers, a commitment made by a world leader, philanthropist, or corporate leader on stage is just the beginning of the process. 

Afterward, Global Citizen continues to monitor the commitment progress and follows up with the relevant parties to make sure money is disbursed, policies are changed, and promises are kept. 

You can find out more about our impact here.

What Has Global Citizen’s Impact Been Like?

Global Citizen strives to shine a spotlight on the activists and humanitarians addressing the world's most urgent crises, and serve as an incubator for changemakers. 

We are driven by a community of people who care about their fellow human beings, no matter where they are in the world, and we offer a platform for winning concrete commitments.

Over the years, over $49 billion in funds mobilized by Global Citizen have reached organizations and communities all over the world working to defeat poverty and defend the planet.

The results speak for themselves — around 1.3 billion people have been impacted by commitments that have improved sanitation systems, created opportunities for smallholder farmers, expanded marine protection, and so much more. 

Why Should You Take Action With Global Citizen?

Here are a few key reasons to join the Global Citizen movement and take action with us today:

• You'll be adding your voice to the fight for a fairer, more sustainable world — and with our app you can do it straight from your phone, at the time and place that works for you.
• You can tell world leaders and those with the power to shape and finance real change directly what issues you care about and why the world needs them to step up.
• By taking action with us, you also earn points that you can use to win Rewards — from tickets to incredible live events and once-in-a-lifetime experiences with your favorite artists, to sustainable treats from leading brands, and more.

All the individual actions taken by Global Citizens around the world add up to a powerful chorus of voices that cannot be ignored. This chorus  gets loudest in the run-up to Global Citizen's festival events, which unite the world's biggest names in entertainment, advocates, world leaders, corporations, philanthropists, and of course, Global Citizens, to drive change. 

At these events — such as the annual Global Citizen Festival in New York's Central Park, and Global Citizen Festival: Amazonia, coming this November — heads of states, business leaders, and philanthropists take the stage to answer the demands made by Global Citizens through their action-taking. These commitments may include financial contributions or policy changes to improve global food security, reduce the impact of climate change, support education for children everywhere, and more. 

And for Global Citizens who have earned their spot in the crowd through taking action with us, these events mark the culmination of their efforts. Combined with stunning musical performances from the world's biggest artists with thousands of action-taking Global Citizens in the audience, our events are a moment of celebration for the impact we're achieving together.

Over time, this sort of solidarity, this shared hope that poverty can be defeated, has turned into a mass movement of people demanding that their leaders build a world that allows everyone to live in peace, free from hunger, capable of pursuing their dreams. 

Who wouldn’t want to join?