From the Nominator

"The "What Starts Here" microsite is the primary online presence for the University of Texas at Austin’s 10-year, $6 billion comprehensive fundraising campaign. We carefully developed our content and user experience to meet a variety of goals, including giving calls to action, volunteer stewardship, and the production of standardized campaign cases across 24 fundraising units.  

"What Starts Here" is one of our “Goldilocks” projects that felt like we got it just right—there’s a lot of content but not too many long blocks of text; razzle-dazzle from videos, animation, and photography but not in a way that slows load times. An interested visitor can click deep into the university case for support, but someone who just wants the basics can check out a conversational FAQ.    

We used the site as a centerpiece of an omnichannel campaign the week of our public launch, and it continues to get regular traffic through placements and referrals across UT’s digital ecosystem. The microsite met or exceeded all of our project KPIs, driving a 242 percent increase in sessions, a 196 percent increase in pageviews, and 100 percent on-time participation from 24 fundraising units. Nearly 70 percent of microsite visitors have never visited UT’s giving site before."

From the Judges

Judges found this to be a beautiful and engaging site with high-quality photography and user-friendly navigation (a max of three clicks and sticky buttons). Impressive KPIs were noted in the narrative, including that nearly 70 percent of microsite visitors had never visited UT’s giving site before. The accessibility options provided in a prominent menu, accessed via an icon, is a terrific feature that promotes an inclusive user experience. The simple yet powerful redesigned giving page is something all institutions should aspire to create and is no small accomplishment given the 24 schools and units the team had to coordinate with to get everything across this site in sync. The judges felt this entry was highly commendable in being accomplished with a five-member internal team using existing collateral and achieving such high ROI with no additional budget for this project.