Matthew was a very early employee of Change.org, joining the organization in 2009. His previous career in politics and policy advocacy paved the way for Change. The day he graduated from college in 2004, he drove to Iowa to work for presidential candidate John Kerry. After driving 14,000 miles and working there for eight weeks, he realized that "there is no power to change the world in this way". He devoted the next four years to nonprofit advocacy work, then joined others in an effort to make the "against the Darfur genocide" one of the most high-profile social movements of the decade, lobbying "celebrities" , politicians and all possible funding to solve this problem".
Despite the involvement of George company banner design Clooney, Oprah, Secretary of State and other bigwigs, Matthew said: "It hasn't really changed." In June 2009, Matthew was having dinner with Change CEO Ben Rattray, and he wondered, "What does it take to create effective social change?" He has experienced first-hand a variety of traditions. Power—money, powerful people, titles, class, people in power, professions—but none of those forms were found to have much impact. Despite the promise of the Internet to popularize power, the online world tends not to accept too new ideas or "crazy" characters. After Matthew and Ban finished their meal, he called and told his mother on the way home, "If this person can say 10 percent to me, I think it's amazing.
Ban's vision for Change is "Just as Amazon is for books and YouTube is for video, changemakers need a place like this." Rafael recalled that when he learned about Change in his early years, he had little interest. But a few years after working on Leo's case, one day in 2013, he began to wonder where he hadn't done his best. He asked several friends for their opinions, including Matthew: "What else do you think we can do?" Matthew responded: "I think it's going to get a lot of buzz on Change.org."