Wed, 27 Aug 2008
Kintera, a technology company that provides integrated, on-demand open platform fundraising tools for non-profit organisations, has judged Sesame Workshop's website www.sesameworkshop.org winner the Most Creative Website Rebranding Award
The award was announced at the Annual Kintera User Conference in Washington, DC, where hundreds of non-profit staffers from organisations both large and small gathered to learn more about new technologies in online fundraising and to recognize the work of their peers. The theme of this year's conference was "Raising the Bar."
Sesameworkshop.org and sesamestreet.org relaunched earlier this month on 11 August, after two years of extensive research and development. Sesameworkshop.org tells the many stories behind the organisation's work with children over the past 40 years. Through compelling video, stories, and interviews, users will see firsthand how the Workshop impacts children from Bangladesh to Egypt to Kosovo. The Sesame Workshop site, which includes a new streamlined e-philanthropy area, will also allow current and potential donors to easily support the organisation's mission.
Sesamestreet.org introduces a safe and interactive experience designed to engage and educate children and their caregivers. Completely free of charge to all users, highlights of the websites include: hundreds of Flash-based games and activities featuring favorite Sesame Street characters to help preschoolers prepare for school; nearly 3 000 classic and current Sesame Street videos; and preschooler-friendly applications. Research-driven, the site offers many points of differentiation, all meant to provide kids with the most satisfying web experience possible, including: a Muppet Home Page, where users are greeted by a live action Muppet host who introduces the featured theme of the day; PlaySAFE, which prevents children from navigating away to other sites on their own; a star cursor since research indicates children do not have a strong visual response to the arrow image; hot spots and sparkles as children need an over visual indicator to determine what areas they can access on the site; Sesame videos and playlists, currently featuring over 1,000 playlists and 3,000 classic and current videos, which will expand to over 10,000 videos by the end of 2009; parenting and caregiver tips that relate to what their child is doing on the site; and over 400 Flash-based mini-games and nearly 90 full games, both interactive and keyboard-based.
Sesame Workshop was fortunate to assemble a creative team of multiple vendors from around the globe. These partners were led by Magnani Caruso Dutton, Firefly Interactive and CIGNEX who helped design, develop and integrate the complex functionality of this new site. Kintera Inc. provides the fundraising functionality for the websites.
