Some surprising and happy news was delivered to my in-box today, an announcement that our client the United Nations Foundation 
has won best website at the Convio 2008 Innovation Awards!
Convio, the leading CRM provider for the non-profit sector, announced the awards at their Client Summit held this week in Austin, Texas, with over 700 clients and partners in attendance. The UNF site, one of our major projects for 2008 and a true labour of love for a large team here at home and in DC, won the innovation award for best website.
A sleek new design with a rotating homepage story cube has attracted 9,000 new registrants since September. The new design offers multiple opportunities to engage viewers including online pledges, polls, quizzes, take action links and unique donation programs. The United Nations site also connects constituents with the organization's various social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, blogs, YouTube, webcasts and podcasts. The United Nations Foundation parnered with Communicopia to deliver this new Web site.
We are so happy for the UNF, as this was meant to be a "transformative project" that would help their whole organization become a higher profile org in the world by telling better stories and engaging more people in the amazing work of the foundation (and thus the UN).
In some ways this is just as sweet for me as the Webby Award that UNF's Nothing But Nets campaign won in 2007 – as amazing as that site was (and continues to 
be…$22M raised and counting). Building a memorable organizational website for a fast moving, complex global organization when there are so many stories to tell, departments to represent, actions to offer, and people to please is a much harder business challenge than pulling off a compelling campaign site. It's nice to be recognized for the quality of the work among such a high calibre of peers.
Huge congratulations goes out to UNF web staff Shannon, Phoebe, Victoria, Travis, and Daniel for their tireless work, and senior execs Kathy, David, and Katherine for their vision on how a web project can bring an organization together and make a transformative impact on the inside and outside world.
Check out the UNF website today: www.unfoundation.org and be sure to sign on to join the growing constituency for global solutions from the UNF!
