From the Nominator

The Purdue for Life Foundation—created in 2020 by uniting the Purdue Alumni Association and the University Development Office—produced an entirely digital annual impact report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023. Our president and CEO wanted to spread the word about the foundation's impact to not only all donors but also all 600,000+ Purdue University alumni. Rather than produce an expensive printed impact report that could only realistically be mailed to a small subset of the Purdue community—and the majority of alumni and donors instead receiving a link to a static PDF of the report—our in-house marketing and communications team developed a comprehensive digital report that was engaging, creative, and fun to read online. Work began the first week of March to assemble the content. In May and June, approved copy was delivered to our creative team. Design began the last week of June and ran through July. The final impact report was shared far and wide beginning August 1. Our foundation president received countless emails and phone calls praising the innovative approach—and the tens of thousands of dollars that were saved by going digital.

From the Judges

Put simply: This is how a digital report should be done. With so many digital reports delivered as a PDF of a print report, this was an absolutely perfect piece that was inspiring, engaging, and memorable. We had never seen anything like it before and immediately shared the example with colleagues. This piece took advantage of all of the strengths of a digital publication and offered beautifully incorporated and executed animation, video, colors, and textures that simply cannot be done in print or PDF formats. From a design perspective, the type was effective and restrained, which allows the other features to shine. This piece definitely took a lot of manpower and hours to create, which may be difficult for smaller institutions to replicate without outsourcing, but the use of the Shorthand no-code software simplified the process considerably. This was every judge's top pick, an immersive and interactive design that was flawlessly executed.