William Penn Foundation, a family foundation with its roots firmly planted in Philadelphia, turned to I-SITE to create a fresh new website to clearly and elegantly communicate its philanthropic mission to the region’s community of innovators and grant seekers.
Established over 70 years ago by Otto and Phoebe Haas the foundation is focused on three program areas; helping improve education for low-income children; ensuring a sustainable environment; and fostering creative communities that enhance civic life and advance philanthropy in the Greater Philadelphia region.
The I-SITE team first reached out to the community to gain insight on what the previous grantees seek most in the Foundation’s website. Coupled with insight from the highly experienced Foundation staff, the team was able to develop a more streamlined site structure with clear call-to-actions. The subsequent wireframe prototypes allowed the team to test the effectiveness of the new approach.
For the design there was strong directive to create an elegant design that is both contemporary but also rooted in the strength and heritage of the Foundation’s brand. I-SITE partnered with award-winning designer Andee Mazzocco of Saygrid on the creative direction of the website. Having previously completed a number of projects for the Foundation, Andee brought extensive knowledge of their programs and design guidelines.
Built on the Drupal CMS platform the website is fully responsive and integrates both video and the full database of grants awarded since 2013. The What We’re Learning section also allows filtering by year and program area.
Since launch in summer 2015 the website has been well received both by the community at large and by the staff as a tool to disseminate information and educate and prequalify potential grantees.
The I-SITE team continues to offer support to the Foundation both for additional features and strategic direction.
In early 2013 the I-SITE developed and launched the Android version of the free Downtown NYC smartphone app, which is the latest in a series of web and mobile applications created for our client, the Alliance for Downtown New York. The application was first developed as an iOS app for iPhones and iPads. I-SITE previously launched the downtownny.com website in the spring of 2011.
The app was created for tourists, residents and workers in Lower Manhattan to to find events on an integrated Google map, share the events and locations via social media, and add events to their calendar apps on their mobile devices.
The Android app’s interface is very similar to the iOS version, but customized for Android. Both apps utilize an easy-to-use, clean interface to enable the user to, in seconds, find events and locations that interest them. Downtown Alliance staff can easily add events and other data to the application through the same CMS interface as they use to manage the website content and iPhone app.
The I-SITE team bolstered the movement to make schools a healthier place with the design and development of a website for the National Dairy Council and National Football League. The goal of the website was to enroll and support thousands of educators providing access to activities, tools and resources that help their students to engage actively in the national Fuel Up to Play 60 program.
Once registered educators were able to track the progress of their schools and students through personalized dashboards and by following six clear steps for the Fuel Up to Play 60 program. To motivate educators and students the site includes digital rewards that are downloaded once certain tasks have been completed.
Key features of the site include:
- Personalized dashboards with message center
- Interactive Playbook with over 60 activities
- Interactive Timeline for the six steps
- Digital Rewards for meeting program goals
- Video integration with SchoolTube
Post launch the I-SITE team supported the website prior to a full transition to the National Dairy Council team.
Sprout contacted the I-SITE team to create a media rich mobile app to encourage both kids and parents to complete healthy challenges together. The app named Family Challenge is part of a larger ‘healthy living’ initiative called “Be Kind to Yourself“. The app utilizes themes from both Sprout and Iceland-based children’s television program LazyTown programming and presents a parent-child team with ten healthy challenges. Each challenge is comprised of an activity that focuses on healthy eating or exercise. After a parent-child team has completed the activity, they mark it as complete and move on to the next activity. At the completion of a set number of challenges, the parent-child team wins an ‘incentive’ in the form of a music video, theme song or a themed photo frame wallpaper.
The project from concept to development to wireframing to design was highly collaborative. Highlights include:
- Rewards you with videos and other multimedia on reaching milestones
- Creation of custom wallpapers with users own photos that can be shared through Facebook
- Tracks your progress in with a Energy Meter and ‘Trophy Case’
- Reminders to complete the next challenge
The Family Challenge App App received notable awards including Best Family Mobile App at the 2013 IAC Awards. Post release the I-SITE team continued to update the App and issue new releases.
For more information on this project and if your interested in creating something similar for your organization or company contact Ian Cross.
I-SITE teamed up with Josette Bonafino of MYX: Multicultural Youth Exchange to create the Armenian Housing Crisis iPad App in order to raise awareness of the chronic poverty housing in Armenia and to offer support to some of the country’s most vulnerable families.
This storytelling app features an historic timeline of Armenia, an overview of the country’s current economic situation, video interviews with domik families and interactive infographics. The team also created a responsive website to promote the App and a Web page to accept donations for a project that provides free showers to the domik residents.
To date the program has raised over $3,000 with 100% of the funds going directly to the community. MYX recently traveled back to Armenia to continue work on the project and I-SITE will continue to update the App based on new content.
