NRDC

Gold – Nonprofit

Since 1970, NRDC has been working to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. NRDC combines the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of more than 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild. Forum One has partnered with NRDC to develop its website as well as additional digital assets, such as an immersive storytelling experience to celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary in 2020 and an offshore drilling position tracking tool to help constituents easily find their legislators’ positions on offshore drilling. Overall, this work has helped to empower NRDC’s content managers, engage their audience, and amplify their impact.

March of Dimes

Gold – Nonprofit

March of Dimes is dedicated to leading the fight for the health of all moms and babies. Their goals are to end preventable maternal health risks and deaths, end preventable preterm birth and infant death, and close the health equity gap. Their work includes research, education for families and health professionals, support for families directly affected by the maternal health crisis, and advocacy.

Forum One partnered with March of Dimes to consolidate their more than 40 web platforms to develop an easy and streamlined experience for audience members to engage as they like, as well as create a website that could clearly communicate their mission.

American Jazz Museum

Gold – Cultural Institutions Website

Located in the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District in Kansas City, MO, the American Jazz Museum showcases the sights and sounds of jazz through interactive exhibits and films, and features live music in their venues, The Blue Room, and Gem Theater. We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the entire American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. The new American Jazz Museum brand positions the museum to be a beacon of rich history and vibrancy for the community and neighborhood, and attract audiences from around the country to experience music from a range of eras and artists.

National Rural Health Resource Center

Gold – Health

The National Rural Health Resource Center provides technical assistance, information, tools, and resources for the improvement of rural health care. The work that the center does is crucial in rural communities, where it improves the health of rural populations and helps to keep many rural hospitals open.

Forum One worked with the National Rural Health Resource Center to design their new website in Drupal 9. This redesign took a user-centric approach to better meet the needs of the site’s users and also utilized accessible, inclusive, and scalable design.

Freedman’s Bureau Search Portal (NMAAHC)

Gold – Government

In 2016 NMAAHC launched the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project in the Smithsonian Transcription Center. Since then, thousands of volunteers have transcribed hundreds of thousands of image files of the more than 1.7 million pages of documents in the Freedmen’s Bureau archive, the largest transcription project ever undertaken by the Smithsonian. To make these files as searchable as possible, NMAAHC teamed up with Forum One and Quotient, to build the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal. Through this online portal, anyone can search the transcribed and indexed Freedmen’s Bureau Archive in one place. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal was a massive undertaking that could not have happened without the Smithsonian, multiple partners, the thousands of volunteers who transcribed the documents, and the technology that powers the portal. To date, more than 400,000 pages of records have been transcribed. If you would like to help transcribe the remaining documents, please visit the Smithsonian Transcription Center.

Compass by March of Dimes

Silver  – Health and Wellness App

As part of March of Dimes’ mission to fight for the health of all mothers and babies, March of Dimes came to Forum One with the goal of being the digital leader in providing families across the birthing continuum with comprehensive support at the right time to meet their needs. To achieve this, March of Dimes and Forum One worked together to develop Compass by March of Dimes.

Compass is an app designed to support parents in their journey from pregnancy through postpartum by providing answers, resources, and compassion at every step. The app includes journals and trackers to allow parents to record important information about their journey, a glossary of commonly used terms, a community and resource library, a directory of NICU family support partners, a postpartum checkup, and more.

NYU Congressional District Health Dashboard

Silver – Health

Created by the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in partnership with and support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Congressional District Health Dashboard is based on a belief that where a person lives shouldn’t determine how long or how well they live. 

The Dashboard recognizes that while everyone should have the same opportunity to live the healthiest life possible, persistent and systemic barriers to health and opportunity exist in many areas across the country. While city, state, and regional-level data exist, the Congressional District Health Dashboard launched in January 2023 as a first-of-its-kind resource, offering trusted data on health and its drivers for all 435 (and Washington DC) U.S. congressional districts.

HHMI Biointeractive Community

Silver – Education

HHMI BioInteractive brings the power of real science stories into tens of thousands of high school and undergraduate life science classrooms through free classroom resources and professional development. In partnership with HHMI, Forum One developed the HHMI Biointeractive Online Community, which is a multi-lingual, logged-in experience offering a wide range of tools for science educators vetted through a verification process. 

NMAAHC Simmons Talks

Silver – Branded Digital Content for Community Engagement/Outreach

The National Museum of African American History & Culture’s Simmons Talks series connects audiences with individuals of singular vision, intellect, courage, compassion, and historical and contemporary significance and creates an opportunity for NMAAHC to connect with its audiences outside of the structure of a visit to the museum. Endowed by Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the talks named in her honor feature discussions with African American innovators in art, business, science, literature, medicine, social justice, technology, and more. Forum One partnered with NMAAHC to develop a visual brand system for the event in addition to visual assets which were used across NMAAHC’s digital channels and in-person at the event. This built on NMAAHC’s core design system and utilized design, illustration, motion graphics and more to engage NMAAHC’s audience and create a visual language that could excite and inspire event attendees.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Silver – Science

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) is a multipurpose research facility operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy. Since its opening in 1962, SLAC has been helping create the future, including the launch of the first website in North America in 1991. In order to continue attracting top talent and share its mission with stakeholders, SLAC was looking for a complete redesign of its website. Forum One worked with SLAC to create a Drupal site that achieved all of these goals and more.  

We want to thank our fabulous Forum One team members and clients for the countless hours, hard-won achievements, and commitment to making the world a better place that drove all of these projects to success. While this passionate work has translated into great honors like this, it’s also, more importantly, created a positive impact in communities nationwide!

At our second annual Digital Impact Summit last week , I spoke about the the opportunities presented by new technologies to drive impact for mission-driven organizations. With a focus on using AI and data as a tool for impact, here are some of the areas I see as key for our sector: AI’s role in the digital transformation journey.

In the mission-driven sector, the opportunities for AI are myriad. Generative AI (tools capable of generating text, images, or other media) and predictive AI (tools capable of identifying patterns in past events and making predictions about future events) can aid in addressing a variety of challenges, from content engagement to decision-making and data analysis:

• Enhanced operational efficiency: AI can help organizations streamline processes, reduce administrative burdens, and maximize operational efficiency, allowing staff to focus on meaningful work.
• Reimagined service delivery: AI-powered digital tools open the door to entirely new service delivery models, offering innovative ways to achieve mission-driven goals.
• Democratized problem-solving: These tools can empower communities and stakeholders to actively participate in solution design, promoting a more inclusive and participatory approach.

Leveraging AI for fundraising and campaigns

In the nonprofit space, there is growing interest in using predictive analytics and machine learning to optimize fundraising strategies. These tools can analyze donor preferences and behaviors to tailor fundraising approaches and target potential donors more effectively. 

Natural language processing and chatbots

Natural language processing and chatbots have unique potential to create and drive access to deep knowledge bases that allow more natural interactions with users. This technology is reshaping how people access information, making it more user-friendly and efficient.

Data and responsible governance

Data analytics are absolutely essential for organizations to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement, as well as engage stakeholders more effectively for decision-making.​​ As data privacy remains paramount, organizations who are transparent about their usage practices and who design systems with user security in mind are the ones who will gain trust.

In the government sector, the focus is on process audit and service automation, data and analytics for informed decision-making, ethical AI use, open data, transparency, and cybersecurity. These areas are critical for improving government services, increasing transparency, and protecting sensitive data.

The opportunities ahead

While we must acknowledge the associated risks, it’s crucial to recognize that AI offers us a multitude of opportunities to create a profound and enduring impact on the world. As we navigate this dynamic landscape, clarity about the problems we aim to solve and thoughtful integration of AI across our technology stack will be key to success.

In the for-profit world, a product may be a tangible item that customers can purchase or subscribe to, driving financial success. For nonprofits and government agencies, products serve the same purpose but with a different focus. They directly contribute to the organization’s programmatic mission, making a significant difference in the lives of those they serve. 

With this shared objective, products across sectors play an essential role in addressing needs and driving progress. We’re pleased to be seeing a growing focus on products and product strategy among government agencies and nonprofit organizations, developing products and approaches that advance progress in health, the environment, and beyond.

Mission-Driven Product Examples

Products can be websites, but not all websites are products. Product-focused websites actively deliver on the organization’s mission: the functionality to match volunteers to workdays for a service-oriented nonprofit, for example, may live on the organization’s website, but like a product, it’s delivering on a specific focus that target populations can use directly.  

Examples of recent products we’ve collaborated on include:

March of Dimes App for Caregivers

As part of expanding the March of Dimes digital ecosystem, Compass by March of Dimes is a mobile application that provides supportive and valuable resources for post-partum and NICU families. Users have the ability to add profiles for newborns and keep track of key actions and data in relation to their newborn, such as weight, feeding, and skin-to-skin contact.

Smithsonian NMAAHC’s Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal now makes more than 400,000 pages of volunteer-transcribed records and previously-unavailable data sets accessible for anyone to search. Created by Congress in 1865, the Freedman’s Bureau helped formerly enslaved people transition to citizenship and documented millions of federal records relating to the refugees, freedmen, and lands abandoned or seized during the Civil War.

City Health Dashboard

NYU’s Langone Health’s Department of Population Health developed the City Health Dashboard to share and compare data on 37 measures of public health across more than 500 U.S. cities. With powerful tools to explore and analyze the data, the City Health Dashboard is today a highly-regarded one-stop resource for comprehensive, reliable, and actionable data to help America’s cities build healthier and more equitable communities.

AARP Livability Index

The Livability Index website and data explorer scores neighborhoods and communities across the U.S. and presents detailed data from more than 50 sources on 61 key factors that most affect their residents’ lives, including housing, neighborhood amenities and conveniences, transportation, environment, health, opportunities for civic engagement, and inclusiveness.

Applying a product mindset—with or without a product

Whether or not your end goal is a true product, product-focused strategies can be useful in many ways. Using language or tactics from product strategy can help organizations focus on goals and audiences within larger projects. Taking an end-user approach can help teams focus on audience needs over the needs of internal stakeholders, by asking: “who is our end user?”

Similarly, such an approach can sharpen focus on features or content that support specific strategic goals. Applying product strategies can help teams prioritize among overly broad audiences and consider opportunities to treat large volumes of content or other outputs as distinct “products.” Internally, such a focus can make setting milestones and providing feedback more achievable, by segmenting goals into product-like “sprints.”

Finally, product strategy can help teams evaluate how well they’re achieving their goals and course correct as necessary. By viewing projects as products, it becomes easier to track usage or feedback metrics over time. This makes it possible to see whether outputs are resonating with intended audiences and if progress is being made on the grand scheme of things.

Ultimately, approaching projects in a product-focused way can give mission-driven teams more structure, reduce scope creep, and help stay on track. This allows teams to focus on the big picture while remaining focused on achieving organizational and digital goals.

Not Loving GA4? We Get It. Now Let’s Make It Work.  

Speaker(s): Steven Bond, Vice President of Strategy

Navigating the shift to Google’s GA4 has been a roller coaster ride for many nonprofits. If this resonates with you, join us for this session which confirms the biggest challenges, but also explores some pretty great opportunities and success stories.

We’ll delve into several common concerns—such as the challenges of data comparison, the absence of readily available reports, and the distinction between the free and premium versions—as well as explore the importance of transparency in GA4 to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the data insights provided. We’ll also explore the strategic intent of GA4 as well as explore its potential in adaptive techniques, robust machine learning algorithms, and powerful predictive analytics.

Together, we’ll unravel the intricacies and shed light on how you can optimize your analytics experience so that you can confidently track what matters and make the best data-informed decisions going forward. Transcend your apprehensions and transform them into strategic advantages for your nonprofit organization!

Composable Architecture: A Catalyst for Nonprofit Innovation

Speaker(s): Jenn Johnson, Managing Director of Client Services; Andrew Howell, Technology Manager

What if you could use the best parts of your favorite CMS alongside the most innovative interactive design technologies? To raise the bar in digital innovation, nonprofits can explore new ways to drive more engaging, impressive, and effective digital experiences by coupling modern tools to work together through composable architecture.

In this session you will learn what composable architecture is, and how it can be a game-changer towards offering personalized omnichannel user journeys, enhancing security, and improving developer experiences. We’ll discuss the shift from monolithic systems to composable architecture, highlighting real-world nonprofit examples. Explore the role of various platforms and tools in this transition, and understand the potential challenges that may arise.

This session is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction and understanding of composable architecture, its critical components, and how it can be integrated into your existing systems and tools. Join us to unlock the potential of this innovative approach for your organization!

Leveling Up Your Brand: The Secret to Voice & Visual Design

Speaker(s): Corey Jones, Creative Director; Sara Tetreault, Strategy Director

Whether your nonprofit has been around for over five decades or just popped out of the oven, let’s be real: making your brand shine is no easy task. Nailing down your brand voice and tone to meet audience expectations? That’s one puzzle. Cultivating a deep connection between your brand and its audience? That’s a whole other challenge. Discovering that ”secret ingredient” for brand voice and visual design, especially in today’s crowded digital landscape, is what we’re all eager to uncover.

In this session, we dive into the details of crafting a modern brand voice rooted in your nonprofit’s values and goals. We’ll show you how to cook up a compelling visual identity that your audience won’t be able to resist. We’ll also help you assess your brand voice and create a style guide that keeps things consistent while allowing creativity across all your communication channels. We’ll also provide you with some starter ideas and thought-provoking questions to spark your creativity and enhance your visuals and design.

So, join us for some brand magic. Discover the “secret” to your nonprofit’s brand voice, enhance your visual assets, and start making a big impact in the communities you serve.

Accelerate Innovation: Discover the Power of Design Sprints

Speaker(s): Beth Watson, Strategy Lead

Dive into the world of Design Sprints with our hands-on workshop. Guided by the methodology from Google Venture Labs (http://www.gv.com/sprint/), this session immerses you in the steps to create or improve an approach by developing a testable prototype. While the actual sprint produces a prototype in 5 days, we’ll explore the building blocks in 60 minutes.

What we’ll cover:

• The step-by-step process of implementing a 5-day Design Sprint
• When to leverage Design Sprints and other collaborative techniques to accelerate innovation
• What it feels like to be facilitated through a key exercise from Day 1 of the Design Sprint
  

You’ll leave this workshop not only with a comprehensive understanding of what a Design Sprint can achieve, but also with practical insights and inspiration that can supercharge strategy learnings on your next project.

This workshop is perfect for anyone looking to level up their team collaboration and foster a culture of rapid innovation. Empower your team, spark creativity, and accelerate your journey from idea to prototype. Let’s sprint towards success together!

AI for Social Media: Supercharge Your Copy, Images & Videos

Speaker(s): Kassandra Swenson, Senior Marketing Specialist

AI tools are already being used by many organizations to brainstorm ideas, find efficiencies, and explore new ways of working. Of course, what’s generated is never perfect, needs to be checked/referenced, and sometimes falls short of what we had hoped, but what it can do with your existing content can both save you time and get your social media content to shine in ways you simply haven’t yet had the chance or resources to do yet.

This session will offer practical insights that you can apply directly to your nonprofit’s social media presence to enhance outputs, increase engagement, and drive impact. From exploring AI-powered marketing tools that extend your messaging while staying on brand, to utilizing copy to easily produce campaigns, we will walk you through the latest trends and developments in AI and social media. Tools with AI capabilities that we’ll explore include Jasper, Canva, Lumen5, and Sprout Social (to name a few).

Join us as we unpack how your organization can leverage the power of AI and social media to create more meaningful connections, foster community engagement, and provide you with the support you need to amplify your cause in the digital world.

The w3 Awards are judged by an illustrious panel of industry leaders in websites, advertising, mobile sites and apps, video, social media, podcasts, and emerging technologies and showcase the best work in these fields for a given year. Congratulations to all of our clients and team members who worked hard to earn these high honors. Check out all of our w3 Award winners below!

American Jazz Museum

Gold – Cultural Institutions Website

Located in the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District in Kansas City, MO, the American Jazz Museum showcases the sights and sounds of jazz through interactive exhibits and films, and features live music in their venues, The Blue Room, and Gem Theater. We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the entire American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. The new American Jazz Museum brand positions the museum to be a beacon of rich history and vibrancy for the community and neighborhood, and attract audiences from around the country to experience music from a range of eras and artists.

March of Dimes

Gold – Non-Profit Website

March of Dimes is dedicated to leading the fight for the health of all moms and babies. Their goals are to end preventable maternal health risks and deaths, end preventable preterm birth and infant death, and close the health equity gap. Their work includes research, education for families and health professionals, support for families directly affected by the maternal health crisis, and advocacy.

Forum One partnered with March of Dimes to consolidate their more than 40 web platforms to develop an easy and streamlined experience for audience members to engage as they like, as well as create a website that could clearly communicate their mission.

Compass by March of Dimes

Silver  – Family & Kids Mobile Apps & Sites

As part of March of Dimes’ mission to fight for the health of all mothers and babies, March of Dimes came to Forum One with the goal of being the digital leader in providing families across the birthing continuum with comprehensive support at the right time to meet their needs. To achieve this, March of Dimes and Forum One worked together to develop Compass by March of Dimes.

Compass is an app designed to support parents in their journey from pregnancy through postpartum by providing answers, resources, and compassion at every step. The app includes journals and trackers to allow parents to record important information about their journey, a glossary of commonly used terms, a community and resource library, a directory of NICU family support partners, a postpartum checkup, and more.

National Rural Health Resource Center

Silver – Non-Profit Website

The National Rural Health Resource Center provides technical assistance, information, tools, and resources for the improvement of rural health care. The work that the center does is crucial in rural communities, where it improves the health of rural populations and helps to keep many rural hospitals open.

Forum One worked with the National Rural Health Resource Center to design their new website in Drupal 9. This redesign took a user-centric approach to better meet the needs of the site’s users and also utilized accessible, inclusive, and scalable design.

NRDC

Silver – Environmental & Sustainability Website

Since 1970, NRDC has been working to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. NRDC combines the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of more than 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild. Forum One has partnered with NRDC to develop its website as well as additional digital assets, such as an immersive storytelling experience to celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary in 2020 and an offshore drilling position tracking tool to help constituents easily find their legislators’ positions on offshore drilling. Overall, this work has helped to empower NRDC’s content managers, engage their audience, and amplify their impact.

NYU Congressional District Health Dashboard

Silver – Health Website

Created by the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in partnership with and support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Congressional District Health Dashboard is based on a belief that where a person lives shouldn’t determine how long or how well they live. 

The Dashboard recognizes that while everyone should have the same opportunity to live the healthiest life possible, persistent and systemic barriers to health and opportunity exist in many areas across the country. While city, state, and regional-level data exist, the Congressional District Health Dashboard launched in January 2023 as a first-of-its-kind resource, offering trusted data on health and its drivers for all 435 (and Washington DC) U.S. congressional districts.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Silver – Science Website

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) is a multipurpose research facility operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy. Since its opening in 1962, SLAC has been helping create the future, including the launch of the first website in North America in 1991. In order to continue attracting top talent and share its mission with stakeholders, SLAC was looking for a complete redesign of its website. Forum One worked with SLAC to create a Drupal site that achieved all of these goals and more. 

The Nation’s Report Card

Silver – Education Website

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a U.S. Department of Education program, assesses students nationwide on educational outcomes and reports the results to a wide set of stakeholders, including policymakers, education officials, and the media. Since 2012, Educational Testing Service (ETS) has engaged Forum One to design and build more engaging, interactive reports to share the NAEP results, including the most recent 2022 Nation’s Report Cards for Mathematics and Reading, designing and building interactive reports to explore NAEP data at the national, state, and district levels. We also created Highlights pages of infographics, visualizations, and data stories to summarize key takeaways, trends, and insights into the state of K-12 education, including those for the Mathematics, Reading, and Science reports. 

As you can see, we’ve been busy working to make a big impact with all of our partners, from helping to improve the lives of mothers and children to helping people understand and push for systemic changes to improve health outcomes in their communities. These awards are a great honor and representation of that work, but we feel even more honored to be able to work every day with the amazing people who made it happen!

For most organizations in the nonprofit and foundation space, the last quarter of the year is typically the busiest. Amidst juggling priorities, workloads, and holiday festivities, it often feels like there is an overwhelming amount to accomplish and limited time to do so. Are you prepared for the year-end push?

Confirm your main challenges

We’re exploring the most common challenges that organizations face when it comes to wrapping up the last quarter of the year and planning for the next one. These challenges generally fall into the following three buckets.

1. Time

As this year’s strategic plans head towards the finish line, you’ve got a ton to do. With team members, experts and stakeholders planning fall events and winter vacations, it’s generally hard to imagine having enough time to get it all done.

2. Resources 

Human and budgeting resources are both difficult to manage. People are stretched, and as budgets tighten up or run low, you may have potentially less to work with than you’d originally planned.

3.  Priorities

Within digital communications alone, it feels like everything is a priority; however, other departments and leadership have their own end-of-year priorities that are also coming your way. You’re struggling to manage what is going to have the greatest impact while supporting others’ priorities as well. 

Tackle your immediate priorities

The four major priorities to focus on for your digital communications in the last quarter of the year are: content strategy, outreach strategy, reporting strategy, and 2024 planning. 

Content strategy

Where do you need to focus your editorial efforts? Communicate internally with your team, set realistic goals, and to get help where you can.

Outreach strategy

How are you reaching out to your target audiences? Strike the right balance and don’t be afraid to take a few creative risks.

Reporting strategy

How can you package your data in the most impactful way? Have your KPIs guide you and communicate clearly what your leadership needs to know. Here’s a helpful guide to getting started.

2024 planning

How can your end-of-year push support your 2024 planning? To effectively juggle tasks, loop next year’s planning into your 2023 tasks as you set a base framework around your mission and goals.

It’s important to look at all four areas and see where you need to focus the bulk of your time. As digital communicators, we want to do it all — but doing it all versus doing what is going to create real impact are not necessarily one in the same. What do you absolutely need to achieve in the next three months? What can be deprioritized in order to cut down on distractions?

Inspire audiences to take action 

Content and outreach strategy are entwined: How are you proactively reaching out to your target audiences to get them to take action in this last (and busiest!) engagement quarter? 

Across email, web and social, always be looking at your analytics to see where you’ve had the most success and prioritize those areas first.

Content goals for mission-driven organizations often include:

• Conversions: A particular goal around new subscribers, new attendees to an annual event, etc.
• Content partnerships: Building collaboration with external groups and partners to get your content out on mediums you don’t own.
• Engagement: Targets around people liking, sharing, and referencing your content.

Once you’ve pulled your main goals back up, look at the data to see where you are so far for the year. You can’t reach your goals if you aren’t taking an honest look at your data. See what’s working, and outline where you need to focus your time. Do this as a team; you will be far more creative and effective when it comes to implementing your approach.

In general, quality always wins over quantity, so if you have things that are working well, building on them is going to be more effective. This may include adding examples to case studies, or delving deeper into a particular angle of a blog post. It could also be focusing on your social media output around very particular channels (versus all of them), and on certain topics.

Start to plan (ahead!) for next year

We can’t make time slow down, but we can be helpful to our future selves. 

Get a solid plan—or at a minimum, an outline—together now, not just for the end of year but for January actions too. Having the building blocks in your mind and documented will go a long way. If you’re able to do this this fall, you can toast yourself when Q1 2024 rolls around!

The planned phaseout of Google Analytics was a shock when it was announced. As a free, relatively easy tool, it was used almost universally by nonprofits and all the organizations with whom we work. As of July, it is officially gone, replaced by GA4.
 
Here at Forum One, we have been busy helping organizations prepare for GA4, and even though our partners have now had time to test it out, GA4 still poses a steep learning curve, and frankly, prompts a lot of complaints.

Key issues of concern (i.e., frustration)

We’ll get to the tool’s silver linings, but so you know you’re not alone in your frustration, here are a few of the key issues.

1. The data isn’t apples-to-apples

We knew this going in, but organizations are still having to adjust to learning and setting up new metrics, while data like unique pageviews and bounce rate are gone. This can make it difficult to compare current traffic to past performance.

2. There’s very little “out-of-the-box” 

Universal Analytics was designed to be useful immediately, providing over 30 pre-made reports. While some of us exported our data from UA, those pre-made reports served the data needs of most people well. GA4 is built with a different approach. Rather than a collection of pre-made reports, Google includes a few reports out-of-the-box, but accessing much of the information available in Universal Analytics requires you to utilize their new Explorations tool, which Google says is “a collection of advanced techniques that go beyond standard reports to help you uncover deeper insights about your customers’ behavior.”

3. The gap between free and paid versions is too wide 

While GA4 still offers a free version, and free is the limit for most small organizations, we know larger organizations with sophisticated digital operations who would be interested in investing to improve their analytics and reporting capacity. But the $50k starting price for 360 is a shock after years of receiving the tool for free.

4. Transparency is lacking

GA4 relies on modeling in some cases, meaning in some cases they’re looking at similar behavior among users with shared characteristics, and making an estimate that if one user took an action, a similar user did too. There’s nothing wrong with this kind of modeling, but the extent of its use is unclear, and the lack of clarity makes some users question the data they’re seeing. 

Commiserating on the downsides can be helpful—ultimately addressing these challenges together will help the entire sector—but let’s also spend some time highlighting what’s good and promising about GA4.

On the plus side: GA4 makes analytics more intentional

While the ubiquitous ease of the old Google Analytics made it a snap to use, many organizations had a set-it-and-forget-it-approach. It was often clear that they might run reports regularly, but weren’t really applying lessons or acting strategically on the data or reports they were seeing.

The learning curve of GA4 means that to use it at all, organizations really do need to be more intentional about their goals, strategies, and tactics. This is a good thing; setting real KPIs backed by user data and analyzing what works and doesn’t is key to effective digital strategy.

For example, we’ve seen our client at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture uncover visitor behavior in GA4 that they couldn’t see before. By tracking events with GA4 in their Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal, which allows users to research previously-unavailable data sets dating back to the Civil War, they can see when there are repeat or common searches that aren’t returning results—presumably frustrating users. This knowledge can help them learn what visitors are actually looking for, what they value, and the museum can respond accordingly, elevating certain content or developing new content. Previously, they might just know that visitors spent a certain amount of time on a page before leaving. With the investment of time and intentional setup in GA4, they can reveal much more actionable information.

Adaptive, machine learning and predictive analytics hold promise

Google’s overall focus on machine learning holds promise for future benefits, when fully integrated in GA4. The interface already benefits from intuitive phrasing: presenting questions like “Where did my visitors come from?” GA4 helps users get quick access to a useful report. Making that interface more dynamic, responsive to any prompt, using chat GPT-like functions is something we can envision. 

Predictive analytics are also currently available in a limited scope, but it’s easy to imagine this area being further developed. GA4 could increasingly use machine learning to predict behavior and help orgs adapt. For example, using data to predict “the number and amount of donations an organization should expect to receive in the remainder of the month” or “how many visitors a museum should expect on a specific day,” can quickly enable organizations to make decisions informed by predictive data. 

What other challenges or opportunities are you experiencing with GA4? We’d love to hear them. In the meantime, we’ll continue to share lessons learned and new benefits, tricks, and tactics in GA4 as they develop.

American Jazz Museum

Best Arts Website

Located in the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District in Kansas City, MO, the American Jazz Museum showcases the sights and sounds of jazz through interactive exhibits and films and features live music in their venues, The Blue Room and Gem Theater. We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the entire American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. The new American Jazz Museum brand positions the museum to be a beacon of rich history and vibrancy for the community and neighborhood and attract audiences from around the country to experience music from a range of eras and artists.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Best Science Website

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) is a multipurpose research facility operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy. Since its opening in 1962, SLAC has been helping create the future, including the launch of the first website in North America in 1991. In order to continue attracting top talent and share its mission with stakeholders, SLAC was looking for a complete redesign of its website. Forum One worked with SLAC to create a Drupal site that achieved all of these goals and more. 

Pacific Science Center

Science Standard of Excellence

The Pacific Science Center is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. Forum One worked with the Pacific Science Center to redesign and develop its website in WordPress to highlight the museum’s post-pandemic reopening and connect audiences with its expanded slate of digital events and exhibits. The site offers an intuitive and high-performing experience across devices, with a smooth ticketing process and user-centered design. The Pacific Science Center’s new website launched in tandem with the museum’s physical reopening, successfully serving a high number of visitors on reopening weekend.

Compass by March of Dimes

Mobile Standard of Excellence

As part of March of Dimes’ mission to fight for the health of all mothers and babies, March of Dimes came to Forum One with the goal of being the digital leader in providing families across the birthing continuum with comprehensive support at the right time to meet their needs. To achieve this, March of Dimes and Forum One worked together to develop Compass by March of Dimes.

Compass is an app designed to support parents in their journey from pregnancy through postpartum by providing answers, resources, and compassion at every step. The app includes journals and trackers to allow parents to record important information about their journey, a glossary of commonly used terms, a community and resource library, a directory of NICU family support partners, a postpartum checkup, and more.

Freedman’s Bureau Search Portal by NMAAHC

Government Standard of Excellence

In 2016, NMAAHC launched the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project in the Smithsonian Transcription Center. Since then, thousands of volunteers have transcribed hundreds of thousands of image files of the more than 1.7 million pages of documents in the Freedmen’s Bureau archive, the largest transcription project ever undertaken by the Smithsonian. To make these files as searchable as possible, NMAAHC teamed up with Forum One and Quotient to build the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal. Through this online portal, anyone can search the transcribed and indexed Freedmen’s Bureau Archive in one place. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal was a massive undertaking that could not have happened without the Smithsonian, multiple partners, the thousands of volunteers who transcribed the documents, and the technology that powers the portal. To date, more than 400,000 pages of records have been transcribed. If you would like to help transcribe the remaining documents, please visit the Smithsonian Transcription Center.

NRDC

Environmental Standard of Excellence

Since 1970, NRDC has been working to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. NRDC combines the power of more than three million members and online activists with the expertise of more than 700 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild. Forum One has partnered with NRDC to develop its website as well as additional digital assets, such as an immersive storytelling experience to celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary in 2020 and an offshore drilling position tracking tool to help constituents easily find their legislators’ positions on offshore drilling. Overall, this work has helped to empower NRDC’s content managers, engage their audience, and amplify their impact.

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

Healthcare Standard of Excellence

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, uses data to show how where we live matters to our health. For the past 11 annual Rankings, Forum One has developed responsive, increasingly sophisticated data visualizations and maps that let users explore and compare detailed public health information across more than 65 health factors and outcomes for more than 3,000 counties.

March of Dimes

Outstanding Website

March of Dimes is dedicated to leading the fight for the health of all moms and babies. Their goals are to end preventable maternal health risks and deaths, end preventable preterm birth and infant death, and close the health equity gap. Their work includes research, education for families and health professionals, support for families directly affected by the maternal health crisis, and advocacy. Forum One partnered with March of Dimes to consolidate their more than 40 web platforms to develop an easy and streamlined experience for audience members to engage as they like, as well as create a website that could clearly communicate their mission.

Congratulations to all of our clients and Forum One team members who worked so hard to bring these impactful projects to life. Winning these WebAwards is an honor, but what’s even more inspiring is seeing the impact that these different projects have had in making our communities healthier, our history more whole, our understanding of our world more vast, and in furthering our fight against climate change.

Steven has stepped into his new role as Vice President, following his previous role as Forum One’s Managing Director of Digital Marketing.

Having joined Forum One in 2020, Steven’s insights on social media, data analytics, paid search and advertising and much more have been incredibly valuable in guiding our mission-driven clients as they navigated the Covid pandemic—from spearheading online advertising strategies for first-time virtual conventions for the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) to leading strategy for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Steven brings a problem-solving approach to all his work, and excels in collaborative iteration with clients. “A strength of Forum One is that because we have worked with so many stellar nonprofits and government agencies of all sizes we’ve seen what works. Most of the time, clients are looking for success that others have found, and we can apply our internal learning and knowledge to iterate on previous work, moving the whole sector forward,” he said. 

Steven is energized by mission-driven work and the opportunity to support organizations that are experts in their sector, from climate to policy advocacy. His previous experience with for-profit companies and seemingly unlimited budgets has driven him to seek the same high-quality and cutting-edge work for nonprofits. He believes online audiences expect the same visitor experience regardless of sector, and nonprofits can do more with today’s technologies to realize their missions online.

Steven has worked closely with the Chief Strategy Officer, Elisabeth Bradley, who has since stepped into the role of Forum One CEO, and is pleased to see an emphasis on strategy in all of Forum One’s work. He urges clients to: “Come to us with a hard problem. We’re excited to work collaboratively. We design new, fresh solutions based on tested, proven approaches.” 

Prior to joining Forum One, Steven was Director of Strategy & Insights at global agency imre, and was co-founder of livehelper.com, an early innovator in website analytics. Steven hold a B.A. in Business from Towson University.

As you get started on sifting through your data reports and action items completed this year, keep an eye on how your internal and external reports can blend data-driven stories of impact.

When it comes to your reporting strategy, it’s important to keep in mind who your key stakeholders are, and how can you package your data and results in a way that speaks to them directly. Some of the biggest reporting challenges for nonprofits, associations, and foundations include:

• Where to get the data: Some data is found easily in data dashboards, some is not. Knowing where and how to access the full package of data to even begin to review it is a real challenge, especially when data platforms aren’t connected to one another or aren’t online.
• How to glean insights: Having the data is one thing, but knowing what insights to pull with confidence that it is the right picture is quite another. 
• How to format the results: Presenting data findings in a way that makes sense and allows stakeholders to take action is extremely difficult, especially when stakeholders differ in their focus and approach across an organization.

Start with the goals you’ve already set 

Before searching for data, start with your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). What have you been tracking, and where do you stand on those goals?  

If you haven’t defined KPIs for the year, or at least been specific enough in your targets, get a baseline of where you are now so that you’re in better shape for next year. Setting your goals first allows you to anchor a reference point for success. 

You can also look back at where you were at this point a year ago, and take some insights from there. Regularly monitoring performance metrics or KPIs throughout the year allows you to know what you need. Then you can begin looking at your data with a direction and purpose in mind. 

Analyze with actionable data in mind

Once you have the numbers, how do you know which numbers matter more, and how to glean insights? Goal setting matters a lot here. And, don’t only select the data points that are working; show what isn’t to make the case for resources for next year.

The goal with your analysis is to have actionable data. Data that helps you make a decision, refine your strategy, or optimize a channel. If you can’t do something with the data, it’s not supporting the story you need it to tell. 

Format for your stakeholders’ preferences and needs

Once you have a good sense of your analysis and recommendations, you need to think about how you package it for different decision makers. This might seem like the last thing you have time for; however, it is critical because how it is received strongly influences future decisions around budgeting, staffing and other resourcing going into next year. 

You want to strike a balance between highlighting success and showing where you need to go next, while not overwhelming your audience in the process. To do this effectively, it’s important to have a good understanding of communication preferences as well as methods and levels of data comfort for different groups of stakeholders. Here are three report formats we recommend:

For your team

Focus on what you need for your team to be able to understand success and plan ahead. The key is to provide actionable data that will allow you to optimize and prioritize. Often, this is a much more in-depth and detailed report that you use to compare against various KPI targets.

For your departmental leadership

Focus on what your departmental leadership needs to understand and support your growth. This is likely a combination of detailed information about what is or isn’t working particularly well, and a higher-level overview of your activities. The goal is to enable these individuals to advocate for more resources or changes in strategy.

For your executive leadership

Focus on what your executive and board leadership need to understand to make resourcing decisions. Often, this is a high-level report, focused on strategic, organization-wide metrics of success. This is where telling a story with your data is really valuable.

Find inspiration for external audiences

While internal audiences are the target for KPIs and data analysis discussed, what can you take from this process into an annual or impact report? Far from the dense printed annual reports of the past, most organization’s reports are now fully digital, engaging, and data-driven. 

Whatever shape it takes, your annual report is both the moment to tell your nonprofit’s story of impact over the last year and a major opportunity to increase engagement and excitement in your mission for years to come. 

As you dig into your 2023 annual report planning process, here’s some inspiration from different mission-driven organizations with highly effective approaches.

Effective year-end reporting involves blending internal and external data to showcase achievements and growth opportunities. Clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are crucial for meaningful analysis. Tailoring reports to different audiences strikes a balance between celebrating success and planning for the future. 

Learning from impactful organizations like The State of Babies Yearbook and County Health Rankings & Roadmaps demonstrates the power of data visualization in conveying compelling narratives. As annual reports shift to digital formats, they become not only reflections but also drivers of engagement and mission advancement.