Giving Gold

Congratulations to Rebecca Bernstein and her team at the University at Buffalo for the CASE gold they recently won for their work on UB’s giving site. Susan’s already sung her praises of that site in a recent blog post about what makes a good giving site, but I can tell you a bit about the backstory.

Rebecca and her team based the information architecture and content for their giving site upon the Prideful Belonger/Active Support mental model that we helped develop a couple of years back. That model provided a great deal of insight into the motivations, priorities, feelings, and thoughts of current and prospective donors. Those insights now drive the compelling stories, clear nomenclature, specific calls to action, and educational features that you see on the resulting site.

I love the work that they’ve done and the way in which the site fits into the larger puzzle. The mental model work we did helped to form the foundation of the Digital Communications Transformation Initiative, a multiyear effort that is part of UB2020, the University’s long-range strategic plan. The WCI’s deliverables include:

• Practices and infrastructure that fit UBs Web environment, its mission and its strategic goals, scalable for the UB enterprise
• Standards and information architecture that can be used by university programs, schools and departments
• Templates that can be shared throughout the university, geared to helping users produce what they need efficiently and effectively
• Web content, production workflow and roles
• Web Content Management System (CMS) product using existing infrastructure
• Identification of centralized resources needed for Web development supportCheck out how that team’s work-to-date has unfolded at: 
  • The School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
  • The PhD program in Biomedical Sciences
  • The Department of Pediatrics
  • The Department of Biochemistry
  • The Office of the President
  • The University’s homepage that represents the integration of all of their efforts and lessons learned

  Want more? Check out the complete list of launched sites under the WCI at http://ubcms.buffalo.edu/about/launched_websites.html.

  I’m so impressed with what they’ve accomplished so far:

  • A body of mental model research that guides decisions about content, site structure, and navigation aimed at prospective students, faculty, staff, and donors
  • A visual vocabulary that simultaneously supports the University’s brand and the specific needs of each unit
  • A collection of technology tools and components that are coded once and available to every group that comes under the WCI
  • A sensible rollout plan that ensures proper support and successful launches

  People who haven’t been through a campuswide effort like this tend to underestimate the amount of work, time, and expertise necessary either through internal resources or external help. Many mistake this sort of initiative as a design project or an exercise in programming. Many think that one IA will suit all or that content will magically appear. Some will try to cheat the process by imposing arbitrary dates and deadlines, and some will fail to anticipate the long-term resources, policies, and training necessary to sustain their efforts. Rebecca and her team know better, and I think their work serves as a wonderful model to which we should all aspire.