Three mega-trends offer an opportunity to create change in the 21st century that benefits the global public. These trends are challenging civil society groups — and all those who care about participatory democracy — to re-think how people become engaged, informed, active, and organized and what democratic practices and tools are needed beyond the ballot box to support the global public to participate in defining a better world and future and working together to make it happen. Dropping Knowledge International has taken up these challenges.

The democratizing potential of advances in communication technology
The birth of social networking tools like  blogging, and the creation of multi-user content generation, through ground-up projects like Wikipedia and YouTube—where the content of the site, the action on the site, and real world consequences are determined by the people who use the Internet—have advanced the possibility of a 21st century form of participatory democracy. DKI harnesses the best of  the democratic potential of the Internet and other communication tools not simply to create a website that caters to the well connected, but to use the growing interoperability of communication tools to connect people throughout the world through the technology they have at hand.

The global public forced into single issue and unilateral perspectives
New research indicates that traditional issue-based advocacy campaigns are no longer effective as long-term mobilizing tools. Poet Audre Lorde put it well: “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.” There is also now little coherence to any one label, conservative or liberal. We move and change as people because someone speaks to our core beliefs, because some local, national, or global matter doesn’t sit well with what we care about most deeply. DKI provides  the global public with a way of asking and answering questions that recognizes  multiple viewpoints and supports each individual to name the multiple issues and share the perspectives and values they hold.

Dramatic changes in our global economy, society, and world
The high level of worldwide structural and environmental change resulting from globalization has not yet generated an effective social response on the same scale. If the worst of globalization—growing disparities in opportunity and wealth, destruction of local cultures—has wrecked havoc among vulnerable populations of the world, the best of globalization–increased information, heightened international awareness, and connected and easily mobilized groups of people—has not yet resulted in a force with an effective response to these challenges. To help create this force, DKI applies key factors that make a difference in building global learning and action:
•  innovative use of new technology
•  an appeal to creative expression and communications
•  transnational dialogue, organizing, and freely accessible information