2009 Winners

Social Change Winners

Environmental Impact Winners

Environmental Impact Winners: Other Media

First Place:

Potomac Highlands Watershed School

High View, West Virginia
Submission: Potomac Highlands Watershed School
Cacapon Institute works to protect the Cacapon River as it flows into The Potomac River and on into Chesapeake Bay through the use of science and education. The Potomac Highlands Watershed School is an eSchool website designed to encourage K-12 education of watershed issues and what actions can be taken to protect these critical natural resources. The eSchool was designed to look like an old-time, Appalachian schoolhouse to encourage and invite exploration by children in an educational environment, and includes interactive-learning activities such as Watershed Puzzle, Watershed Creator, Stream Cleaner, and Decision Matrix. While the eSchool is focused on the Chesapeake Bay region, it is used by schools free-of-charge throughout the world, including one teacher in Bangkok who used the Flash lessons in an English as a Second Language class.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Runners Up

Mono Lake Committee Website

Lee Vining, California
Submission: Mono Lake Committee Website
The Mono Lake Committee is dedicated to protecting and restoring the Mono Basin ecosystem, educating the public about the impacts of excessive water use on Mono Lake and the environment, and promoting cooperative solutions that protect Mono Lake and meet real water needs without transferring environmental problems to other areas. As part of the 2008 website redesign, large, striking photos of the Mono Basin and video were included to capture people’s attention and increase their involvement in the Committee’s work. The newly designed was featured on the PBS program California’s Gold in December, 2008 and received a huge increase in visits which drove increased support for and awareness of their work.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

WildCare Nature Van

San Rafael, California
Submission: WildCare Nature Van
WildCare advocates for wildlife and helps people understand how to live well with wildlife. Each year WildCare treats nearly 4,000 wild animals of more than 200 species in their wildlife hospital and teaches over 40,000 San Francisco-Bay Area children and adults through nature education programs. The WildCare Nature Van is a stunning and head-turning traveling billboard depicting WildCare's mission in glorious full-color images of native wildlife. Our Nature Van visits hundreds of schools and gives kids of all socio-economic backgrounds the chance to meet and learn about California wildlife, instills a love for and appreciation of wildlife and the environment, and provides practical education to promote conservation.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Mono Lake Committee Website

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Mono Lake Committee

Organization's Mission Statement

The Mono Lake Committee is a 16,000 member non-profit citizens’ group dedicated to protecting and restoring the Mono Basin ecosystem, educating the public about Mono Lake and the impacts on the environment of excessive water use, and promoting cooperative solutions that protect Mono Lake and meet real water needs without transferring environmental problems to other areas.

Organization Website

http://www.monolake.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

The non-profit Mono Lake Committee is located in the town of Lee Vining, population 398, overlooking Mono Lake in California’s remote Eastern Sierra. Thirty miles and a major mountain pass from the nearest supermarket, the Committee has worked for over 30 years to protect and restore Mono Lake. We launched our first Website in 1996. Over a decade later, despite its popularity, great usefulness, and our constant innovation and optimization, it had growing pains—it was time to remodel the whole site.

In late 2006 we embarked on our redesigning journey. A friend of ours who knows Flash put together a design with large panning photos for the homepage, and we loved it. The design of the rest of the site followed—we would rely on large, striking photos of the Mono Basin in order to capture people’s attention with the lake itself to generate support. This strategy has worked well ever since our co-founder, the late David Gaines, traveled around California with a Mono Lake slideshow in the 1970s.

In 2006 we received a donation of InDesign CS2 and Flash 8 through Techsoup. By the summer of 2007 our Website planning and design incorporated many new Web 2.0 concepts—so we acquired Dreamweaver 8 and Design Premium CS3, again through Techsoup. This past year we upgraded to Adobe Design Premium CS4.

We had formerly maintained our Website with Microsoft Frontpage, but now we switched to Dreamweaver. With the Flash donation we were able to make movies ourselves. We were not only learning how to create the new features we wanted for the Website, but also learning new programs. Our team of four staff spent most of 2008 in this learning process.

In summer 2008, we put our existing content, plus new images we created in CS3, into our new format using Dreamweaver. We finalized the homepage by editing our friend’s Flash movie. In November 2008, we launched the new Website!

In December, Mono Lake was featured on the PBS program California’s Gold, and website visitation that night crashed our server! In January, actor and director Mark Ruffalo visited our Website and was impressed by it and by our work, prompting him to prohibit plastic water bottles on the set of his current movie and give the whole cast and crew a Mono Lake Committee stainless steel water bottle! Our 16,000 loyal, generous members also love the new Website.

The Mono Lake Committee, though we operate in a remote rural location, has always been on the cutting edge—creating new precedents in state water law, helping make Los Angeles and California more efficient through water conservation and water recycling, educating thousands of students and visitors each year, and protecting and restoring Mono Lake for future generations. We feel that our new Website, designed and maintained by our staff with Adobe products from Techsoup, communicates our message in a fresh, inspiring way—that makes people fall in love with, stay connected to, and protect this place for generations to come.

URL

http://www.monolake.org

Potomac Highlands watershed School

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Cacapon Institute

Organization's Mission Statement

Cacapon Institute - From the Cacapon to the Potomac to the Chesapeake Bay, we protect rivers and watersheds using science and education.

Organization Website

http://www.cacaponinstitute.org/

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Cacapon Institute’s internet-based Potomac Highlands Watershed School (2005) was designed for k-12 classrooms, with lessons tied to required curriculum. While the website is built on a FrontPage platform, the eSchool owes its look and much of its personality to Adobe products: Illustrator, Flash, and Photoshop. The school was designed to look like an old-time, Appalachian schoolhouse. The outside view and classroom interiors were drawn using Illustrator. The outside background and the classroom window views were a digital photograph modified in Photoshop.

The school was designed to be engaging and invite exploration, but not to be overly cute or require a fast internet connection. That drove the decision to make the pages static, with hotlinks embedded in the classroom images. A suite of four interactive Flash activities were built early on: Watershed Puzzle, Watershed Creator, Stream Cleaner, and Decision Matrix. An additional Flash movie (“What is a Watershed”) was added in 2007, and a new suite on benthic macroinvertebrates went “live” on April 13, 2009. These Flash activities are accessible via hotlinks on the blackboards.
While our organizational mission is tied to the Chesapeake Bay region, the eSchool is used by schools free-of-charge throughout the world, including one teacher in Bangkok who used the Flash lessons in an English as a Second Language class. The most popular activity thus far is Stream Cleaner, which teaches about the problem of and solutions for non point source pollution. Stream Cleaner also forms the basis for the annual, month-long Stream Cleaner Environmental Forum that has, over a four year span, engaged over 2000 high school students from throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed for a month in the “high school.”
The new benthic macroinvertebrate activities are designed to enhance the educational benefit of the hands-on stream assessment programs used in schools throughout the USA and much of the world. These activities are accessible by clicking on the “BMI” poster in the classrooms. The portal page was drawn using Illustrator, as were all of the original benthic macroinvertebrate illustrations on that page and in the three Flash activities currently available (“What is a BMI”, “The Sedimentation Blues”, and “Cast of Characters”).
For the purpose of this submission, I’m providing this link http://www.cacaponinstitute.org/e_classroom.htm to the Potomac Highlands Watershed School and suggesting a tour of selected classroom elements. Follow the url, then click on the “High School” door. In the High School Classroom:
1. Click on Stream Cleaner (Flash) on the Blackboard and try the activity.
2. After playing the Stream Cleaner activity, click on the pollution section of the classrooms Bookshelf, and select Stream Cleaner to read background information.
3. After closing out the bookshelf, click on the BMI poster to enter the Benthic Macroinvertebrate Portal.
4. Click on the Sedimentation Blues (Flash) to learn about sediment impact on aquatic life.
5. Click on Cast of Characters (Flash slide show) to get a look at the original Illustrator artwork.
Before they were officially released, the benthic movies were already in use by regional watershed groups.

URL

http://www.cacaponinstitute.org/e_classroom.htm

Submitted by pcrel on April 15, 2009 - 10:34am

WildCare Nature Van

Organization Information:

Organization Name

WildCare

Organization's Mission Statement

WildCare advocates for wildlife for a sustainable world through a complete range of programs to help people live well with wildlife. Each year we treat nearly 4,000 wild animals of more than 200 species in our wildlife hospital; teach over 40,000 Bay Area children and adults in our nature education programs and help people negotiate the boundaries between humans and wildlife with our Humane Wildlife Solutions service and Living with Wildlife Hotline.

Organization Website

http://www.wildcarebayarea.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

WildCare's Terwilliger Nature Van, designed using Adobe PhotoShop, brings our award-winning environmental education programs to classrooms throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

The vehicle, which has been vinyl-wrapped in the vivid design created with Adobe products, is a moving billboard depicting WildCare's mission in glorious full-color images of native wildlife. It is a stunning and head-turning design that attracts attention wherever it goes.

WildCare's Nature Education Programs reach more than 40,000 Bay Area school children each year. Our Nature Van visits hundreds of schools and gives kids of all socio-economic backgrounds the chance to meet and learn about California wildlife. With our Nature Van, WildCare makes a tremendous environmental impact by instilling in the next generation a love for and appreciation of wildlife and the environment, along with practical education to promote conservation.

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application/pdf iconWildCare_Nature_Van_submission.pdfSubmitted by WildCare on April 16, 2009 - 2:51pm

Environmental Impact Winners: Print/Photo

First Place:

Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (AlTo)

Vashon, Washington
Submission: Forest, Sea, and Village: AlTo's Conservation Awareness Campaign for Sea Turtles and Wild Nature in Indonesia
The Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (“AlTo”) is an international non-profit dedicated to conserving the natural heritage of the Mt. Tompotika area in Sulawesi, Indonesia against the urgent and widespread threats of tropical deforestation, destruction of coral reefs, and poaching of endangered species. AlTo conducted an education campaign, consisting of brochures, community presentations and posters, to educate local villagers on the importance of protecting sea turtles. The villagers are now actively engaged in protecting the sea turtles from illegal poaching and enforcing the laws enacted to protect their environment.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website

Runners Up

Rockymarsh Run Watershed Inititive

Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Submission: Rockymarsh Run Watershed Initiative
Through the Freshwater Institute, the Rockymarsh Run Network is working to increase people’s connection to their watershed and their environment in part through the production of a 12-month calendar for distribution in West Virginia. The calendars are created with purpose and meant to inspire community members to act as advocates for the environment around them by identifying topics and actions to help a homeowner make better choices when it comes to our environment and freshwater resources. This initial outreach work lays the foundation for future networking and communication with the local landowners and community members for upcoming stages of restoration work.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website

Asthma Free School Zone: Idle-Free NYC

New York City, New York
Submission: Asthma Free School Zone: Idle-Free NYC
The Asthma Free School Zone (AFSZ) works to keep kids in school by improving air quality and, in turn, reducing asthma-related illness and absenteeism. From Monday to Friday, 8 to 4, schools hold an extraordinary concentration of children with extraordinary vulnerability to pollution. Starting in 2005, AFSZ advocated for a one-minute vehicle idling limit in school zones through the posting of health-protective signage, and training school and community members about environment and health impacts of idling vehicles. This past winter, Mayor Bloomberg signed a measure limiting vehicle idling to one minute in school zones into law – the first such law in the nation.
Project Gallery Page
Organization's Website

Asthma Free School Zone: Idle-Free NYC

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Real World Foundation d.b.a. Asthma Free School Zone

Organization's Mission Statement

The AFSZ works to keep kids in school by improving air quality and, in turn, reducing asthma-related illness and absenteeism. From Monday to Friday, 8 to 4, schools hold an extraordinary concentration of children with extraordinary vulnerability to pollution. Besides pushing for public policy, the AFSZ posts health-protective signage, trains school and community members about environment and health, and helps schools take steps to become safer and healthier learning places for children.

Organization Website

http://www.afsz.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

When Rebecca Kalin brought coffee to a meeting with potential funders, it wasn’t the gesture that impressed them; it was the jackets on the cups. Ms. Kalin had created cupsleeves with our campaign logo and the logo of the potential funders. When the funders asked in amazement how it could happen, Ms. Kalin had her proposal ready.

You could say that we like to make an impact.

Ms. Kalin is founding director for the Asthma Free School Zone (AFSZ), a small non-profit organization that aims to reduce asthma-related absenteeism in NYC schools by improving air quality. Given that 25% of children suffer from asthma in some city neighborhoods, our efforts to reduce air pollution affect the health and safety of our most vulnerable population.

Since 2001, our primary focus has been an idle-free NYC. For three years, beginning with handmade lapel pins made in Illustrator, we pushed for a one-minute vehicle idling limit in school zones. This winter, Mayor Bloomberg signed that measure into law – the first such law in the nation. In honor of World Asthma Month, we are producing our 2nd annual 5-borough public awareness campaign to raise awareness about health and environmental impacts of idling, and encourage drivers to reduce vehicle emissions by turning off at the curb.

Using Illustrator, we designed Idle-Free NYC posters for public buses, with an estimated 18 million impressions for bus tails and 14 million impressions for bus cards. With Photoshop, we created bilingual posters and windshield-wiper flyers. Once a year, using Acrobat Professional, we assemble kits for 100 schools to take stop-idling action in their neighborhoods, and provide them with materials to host Stop-Idling Days at their schools.

Because behavioral change is not easy, our materials have to be convincing. The caliber of the design and production convey the legitimacy of the campaign and the message. With Adobe, a bootstrap organization like ours can create high-quality, professional-looking materials at our own pace and with our own vision without having to spend time or money on outside consulting.

The Idle-Free NYC campaign is a collaborative grassroots effort in a city of 8 million people. The question we ask is not, “What can you do to help us?” but “What can we do to help you?” When a partner needs to produce our literature in a different format or convey our message in another language, we can do it because we control document creation. Expanding our reach requires being able to turn these suggestions into reality.

This spring 1,100,000 NYC children will have a chance for cleaner air in the school zone. Fifty thousand New Yorkers will hold Idle-Free NYC cupsleeves while sipping their morning brew. We are grateful for the ability to create our own materials to deliver a message that has such far-reaching consequences. The Idle-Free NYC campaign will continue to utilize Adobe products to make incremental improvements in the air quality of our city and the health of our communities.

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application/pdf iconAdobeSubmission.pdfSubmitted by Rebecca on April 15, 2009 - 2:09pm

Forest, Sea, and Village: AlTo's Conservation Awareness Campaign for Sea Turtles and Wild Nature in Indonesia

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (AlTo)

Organization's Mission Statement

The Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (“AlTo”) is dedicated to conserving the unparalleled natural heritage of the lands and waters surrounding Mt. Tompotika, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Effective, innovative, and efficient, AlTo protects endangered species, tropical rainforests, and coral reefs while promoting the dignity and self-sufficiency of local communities in a changing world. In Tompotika and beyond, AlTo believes that the quality of our human lives is bound up to the health of our natural environment.

Organization Website

http://www.tompotika.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

The Alliance for Tompotika Conservation (“AlTo”) is a non-profit international grassroots partnership dedicated to conserving the unparalleled natural heritage of the area surrounding Mt. Tompotika, Sulawesi, Indonesia—one of the world’s most critical centers for global conservation. Against such urgent and widespread threats as tropical deforestation, destruction of coral reefs, and poaching of endangered species, there is a tremendous need in Tompotika to educate local residents on the global irreplaceability of their environment, and how and why they can help to conserve it. AlTo trains local Tompotikan staff and uses Adobe products (Illustrator, PhotoShop, and InDesign) to produce outreach materials which are used to educate schoolchildren and villagers about environmental protection. Using these outreach materials produced in Indonesian, the newly-trained and equipped AlTo staff have brought a compelling interactive presentation to over 3000 children and adults who have never before in their lives heard about how intact rainforests keep the earth’s climate stable and air and water clean, or how sea turtles face extinction due to poaching. After the presentations, the Adobe-based outreach materials, including notebooks, brochures, coloring sheets, and posters (all printed on 100% pcw recycled paper), are distributed free of charge, and are highly valued for their beauty and educational value in this impoverished region.

AlTo’s Conservation Awareness Campaign, though barely a year old, is extremely popular with Tompotika villagers, teachers, and students, and Tompotikans are gaining a new pride in and knowledge of their natural heritage. Moreover, these efforts have already resulted in tangible conservation gains.

For example, last November, villagers who had previously participated in AlTo’s Conservation Awareness Campaign noticed human activity on an uninhabited island just offshore. Before AlTo’s conservation work with these villagers, they had routinely poached turtle meat and eggs whenever they could find them. Now, however, with AlTo’s Awareness Campaign and their new-found concern for turtle conservation, they took canoes to the island to find out what was going on. On the island, they found a man who had captured 26 live green turtles and was preparing to butcher them for market. The villagers protested, informing the man that sea turtles are protected, and citing the Indonesian law as printed at the bottom of AlTo’s sea turtle poster. The man ignored them, noting that he had done this all his life.

But the villagers were undaunted. When the man refused to cooperate, they returned to the mainland and sent a messenger on a motorbike three villages away to find a policeman. The policeman also shrugged off news of the turtle caputre, noting that he too likes to eat turtle. But the villagers again cited the law on the poster, which several of them have displayed in their huts, and demanded that the policeman accompany them to the island and enforce the law. Unable to refuse, the policeman did indeed join them, apprehended the poacher, and the turtles were released. The villagers returned to their village triumphant in their new-found role as turtle protectors—and all this was due to AlTo’s Awareness campaign and the Adobe posters!

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application/pdf iconAltoTurtlePosterAdobeContest2009.pdf

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application/pdf iconAlToPosterwithGarlandAdobeCOntest09.pdf

File #3

application/pdf iconAlToChildrenwithposterAdobeContest09.pdfSubmitted by AlTogals on April 15, 2009 - 4:47pm

Rockymarsh Run Watershed Initiative

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Conservation Fund - Freshwater Institute

Organization's Mission Statement

The Freshwater Institute, a program of the Conservation Fund, works to develop and validate sustainable, environmentally responsible solutions to water resource management.

Organization Website

www.rockymarshrun.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Through the Freshwater Institute, the Rockymarsh Run Network is working to connect people to their watershed and their environment. Using Adobe’s Creative Suite, our organization has stepped the effort up a notch to creatively engage the local community. For the past 3 years we have been able to design and print a 12-month calendar for distribution in our watershed located in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. Passing out the calendars to local school children, community leaders, businesses, and residents in the watershed allows our cause to be known and the community to become engaged.

Rockymarsh Run is a small stream that once supported diverse and abundant life. Now, with fewer species to support, it meanders through lands—once dominated by agriculture, as it makes its way to the Potomac River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. Our goal is to help foster the idea of stewardship in the community by highlighting special places that remain in the watershed and by identifying species that one should expect to see in this unique landscape. To this end, the group is attempting, through various partnerships, to reintroduce the native Brook Trout and improve the overall quality of the habitat through restoration activities. This particular stream has microhabitats that make it an ideal candidate for such efforts. But in order to claim success, our group first wants to invoke a passion for sense of place for those in the area who contribute to activities that may influence the quality of our local water resources—which means all of us!

Only through the combined use of Adobe products like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop could our organization produce such a stunning printed calendar to draw people in and stir their feelings for the landscape and all that it holds. The calendars are created with purpose and meant to inspire community members to act as advocates for the environment around them by identifying topics and actions in the pages to help a homeowner make better choices when it comes to our environment, specifically our freshwater resources. This initial outreach work lays the foundation for future networking and communication with the local landowners and community members for upcoming stages of restoration work.

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application/pdf icon2008_Rockymarsh_Calendar.pdfSubmitted by Rockymarsh on April 15, 2009 - 7:03am

Social Change Winners: Other Media

First Place:

Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org

Grovetown, Georgia
Submission: Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org
Remember.org’s mission is to preserve the stories of holocaust survivors while driving social change through learning materials provided for free to classrooms to ensure that events like the holocaust never happen again. The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz is a 360° tour of the Auschwitz camp and museum to designed for people who are otherwise not able to visit the site in person. The creation of the Tour brought together scores of people from around the world to virtually work together on a project that they felt so passionately about. In addition, the Tour has enabled millions of students to virtually visit and interact with the museum since 2005, and not only provides them with a new and interesting learning platform, but also inspires them to apply the lessons learned to fight injustice in their own lives.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Runners Up

The Powerhouse Kids

Durango, Colorado
Submission: The Powerhouse Kids
The Powerhouse Kids is a live-action webisode series designed to engage audiences in the mission to open an interactive science center for all ages in a historic power plant on the banks of the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. The webisode premise: The Durango Discovery Museum at the Powerhouse is supposed to be the coolest interactive science center ever. But will it ever open? Five intrepid kids grow impatient with the grownups’ slow progress, so they take matters into their own hands. With the help of a mysterious voice from the past (played by NPR’s infamous Dr. Science), the Kids discover their special powers and set out to make their vision for the Powerhouse "really real." High jinks ensue. It’s a kid show. It's viral fundraising for a worthy social sector cause. It's a history lesson with a shocking twist.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Child Crisis Center's New Website

Mesa, California
Submission: Child Crisis Center's New Website
The Child Crisis Center is committed to preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. As the economy began to take a turn for the worse, more families and children found themselves in need of the Child Crisis Center’s emergency shelter, adoption and foster care services and parenting classes and support groups. Without an advertising budget, the Child Crisis Center (the Center) had to both increase its ability to reach those needing help, such as military families and children needing a loving home, and also to locate new donors to help fund crucial support services. Launched in December 2008, the Center’s new website did more than just receive praises for its inviting design. It enabled a new service, increased the number of clients the Center has been able to reach and improved its fundraising efforts.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Child Crisis Center's New Website

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Child Crisis Center

Organization's Mission Statement

Our Mission: Strong Families, Safe Kids. The Child Crisis Center is committed to preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. We accomplish this by supporting and strengthening families through education and intervention, providing a safe environment for children to heal and grow, raising community awareness, recruiting, training and supporting foster and adoptive families, and taking the lead and setting the standard for other to follow.

Organization Website

http://www.childcrisis.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Not a dull moment ever occurs at the Child Crisis Center where we are thankful for countless things each day. Behind the scenes of the smiling faces of kids we are working to keep safe, families we are helping to strengthen and children we are matching with loving parents, is Adobe CS3 and for it, we are very grateful.

As the economy began to take a turn for the worse, more families and children found themselves in need of the Child Crisis Center’s emergency shelter, adoption and foster care services and parenting classes and support groups.

Without an advertising budget, the Child Crisis Center (the Center) had to increase its ability to reach those needing help through difficult times, such as military families, children needing a loving home and new donors to help fund crucial support services; it turned to Adobe CS3 for assistance reaching its clients and inciting social change. Launched in December 2008, the Center’s new website (www.childcrisis.org) did more than just receive praises for its inviting design. It enabled a new service, increased the number of clients the Center has been able to reach and improved its fundraising efforts.

On the Child Crisis Center’s new website, focus was able to be given to a new collaboration between 25 agencies across Arizona, Operation Family Support. The programs created by this collaborative effort serve the unique needs of military families throughout the state. With the flexibility and visibility of the Center’s website, Operation Family Support was able to reach enough families in the Phoenix area to launch 3 of its programs this past winter. Over 100 parents and children affected by military service have been served since December 2008.

The Child Crisis Center has seen more than twice as much interest from potential adoptive or foster care parents that have found its programs through the new website. During the months of December 2007 through March 2008, the Center’s adoption and foster care program received 23 inquiries through its old website. Through its new website, during the months of December 2008 through March 2009, the Center’s adoption and foster care program received 52 inquiries!

Donors surfing the net have more easily identified the Child Crisis Center as an organization to which to lend financial support due to its new website. Despite the dismal economic outlook, the Child Crisis Center’s expectations to receive less monetary support during the 2008/2009 holiday season were incorrect and it has Adobe CS3 to thank! During the 2007/2008 holiday season (Dec 2007 – March 2008), $23,535 was donated to the Child Crisis Center through its old website. During the 2008/2009 holiday season (Dec 2008 – March 2009), $28,380 was donated to the Child Crisis Center through its new website.

Visitors find that the Child Crisis Center’s new website is very clearly informative about the Child Crisis Center’s existence, the services it provides to children and families in the Greater Phoenix Area and how community members can help further its mission to break the cycle of child abuse.

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URL

http://www.childcrisis.org

Submitted by ccc on April 15, 2009 - 2:44pm

The Powerhouse Kids

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Durango Discovery Museum

Organization's Mission Statement

Our Mission: To ignite curiosity, spark imagination, and power exploration. Our Vision: To be a leading science and educational center in the Southwest that brings together curious minds of all ages, inspires innovative learning, and unleashes human potential.

Organization Website

http://www.durangodiscovery.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

One hundred years in the making—no wonder they’re done waiting. The Durango Discovery Museum at the Powerhouse is supposed to be the coolest interactive science center ever. But will it ever open? Five intrepid kids grow impatient with the grownups’ slow progress, so they take matters into their own hands. With the help of a mysterious voice from the past (played by NPR’s infamous Dr. Science), the Kids discover their special powers and set out to make their vision for the Powerhouse "really real." High jinks ensue. It’s a kid show. It's viral fundraising for a worthy social sector cause. It's a history lesson with a shocking twist. It’s your chance to help the Kids bring the Powerhouse to life! The Powerhouse Kids is a live-action webisode series designed to engage audiences in the mission to open an interactive science center for all ages in a historic power plant on the banks of the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. The series was produced by the Durango Discovery Museum, Exposure Productions, The City of Durango, and City Span 10 with support from the Preserve America Initiative. Sarah Douglas of gaiacreative, graphic designer for the project, on driving social change through strong design: "As the Durango Discovery Museum’s graphic designer, I use Adobe’s Creative Suite to handle all aspects of the non-profit science museum’s needs. The museum is constantly growing and adding new educational and fundraising programs, so they need brand identity for their programs quickly and on a small budget. Adobe Illustrator is my go-to program for all logos and vector artwork, including the Powerhouse Kids insignia—currently "playing" as a temporary tattoo on a kid near you. I can quickly move from one Adobe program to another, creating graphics in Illustrator that place seamlessly into a DVD eco-wallet design created in InDesign. InDesign is really a powerhouse (no pun intended/well, kinda). In it, I create everything from large-scale banners to push-the-envelope invitations and posters. Photoshop allows me to save artwork as JPGs and transparent GIFs–making it simple for museum staff to use their logos on pieces created in-house. Adobe Creative Suite allows me to build a solid brand for the museum. It helps me create a variety of designs over numerous mediums that all share the "fun and interactive" concept. Come to think of it, CS programs are a lot like that for me–fun and interactive. I’m constantly discovering new capabilities and exploring new ideas with the help of the software. My explorations within the software have allowed the Durango Discovery Museum to stand out as a force for social change through informal, hands-on learning."

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Video

URL

http://bit.ly/phkidsvideocomplete

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Virtual Tour of Auschwitz, a collaboration between Auschwitz Museum and Remember-org

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Project ABE (remember.org)

Organization's Mission Statement

Remember.org is the Holocaust Community founded in 1995, an educational social network of contributors (survivors, liberators, historians, and authors), sharing the best research resources and stories through art, photography, painting, audio/video, and remembrance. We provide materials for grade school to early college students worldwide. Project ABE is the nonprofit that created Remember.org.

This Internet project is about remembering the lives and voices of those who survived, and it is Remember.org's honor to share this for free since April 25, 1995.

Organization Website

http://www.remember.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Remember is an important word in any language, and in regards to the Holocaust, it is a word invoked to keep the human stories alive, and to be sure events like these never happen again. When you search for “Remember” on Google, you’ll find Remember.org, and the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz.

The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz is now live, in Polish and English at the museum’s own site, sharing an intimate view of the museum and camp in 360 degree views to a worldwide audience. Before this Tour, few educational institutions (or parents) had the money or time to visit this important historical site. Now:

1. Social change #1 is the ability to make learning interesting and interactive, with students learning wherever they are, whenever they want. Millions of students have taken the tour since 2005, and many more will see it now (launched Feb. 2009)at the actual Auschwitz web site. This is the first time anyone has been able to see the camp, as it looks today, as if you were there.

2. Social Change #2; this is a collaborative project between many people who have never met, yet can work together. The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz shows the power of the Internet, and small grassroots communities in effecting social change. The entire Virtual Tour project, including the photographer’s time and effort, and creative development, was funded by Project ABE, and shared with the Auschwitz museum for free (and all produced with Adobe products, thanks!).

3. Social Change #3: When students learn about the Holocaust, with new and interesting learning materials, they often decide to apply these lessons to fight injustice in their own lives. Now one of the most important historical sites inspires them to change their present by remembering the lessons of the past, at a place that only a short while ago, few were able to visit.

Remember.org mission is to preserve the stories of survivors while driving social change through learning materials provided for free to classrooms. Yet the Virtual Tour of Auschwitz took this development to another level, incubated at our site and then fully launched at the actual Auschwitz web site today.

The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz has enabled this museum to reach out to a worldwide community, providing an innovative 360 degree tour of the Auschwitz camp and museum. Visitors to the site simply click their mouse and can see what the camp looks like today, while following lesson plans attached to the interactive map.

Remember.org's goal is to help change education by providing content that teachers and schools choose to share with their students, and provide it all at no charge, always. Now a teacher in Des Moines, or Shenzhen, or Bangalore, can share this important museum without leaving home. And we will remember...

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URL

http://remember.org/auschwitz/credits2.php

Submitted by remember on April 14, 2009 - 2:58pm

Social Change Winners: Print/Photo

First Place:

Project Kindle's book, "I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV/AIDS."

Santa Clarita, California
Submission: Project Kindle's book, "I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV/AIDS."
Project Kindle’s mission is to improve the quality of life for kids who are dealing with HIV/AIDS and other life-altering struggles. One of the hardest things for kids with HIV or AIDS to deal with is the stigma they face from society. So Project Kindle created a book and a video to give kids a forum to tell their stories, show off their writings, display their artwork, and let their peers in classrooms around America know that even though they have HIV, they are no different than any other kid. The book and video are provided cost-free to hundreds of schools across the country as an educational resource. By sharing these stories with the larger world, the world is a better, safer and more understanding place for those living with HIV/AIDS.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Runners Up

Day Labor Station Poster Series

San Francisco, California
Submission: Day Labor Station Poster Series
Day Labor Station, a design initiative of Public Architecture, is a sustainable structure that provides a place for day labor gatherings and facilitates the employment process. Each day, over 110,000 people look for day labor work in the U.S, usually waiting at sites that are far from ideal (e.g. street corners, parking lots, etc.). Public Architecture produced a poster series designed to clearly lay out the ethical and humanistic imperative for the creation of these Stations, by showing the human side of the day labor issue. The posters have given the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), a new visual and textual language to use in engaging supporters for the creation of these stations.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Ventura County "Quit" campaign

Ojai, California
Submission: Ventura County "Quit" campaign
In Ojai Valley Youth Foundation’s Generation Communication (Gen Com) program, young people work with adult mentors in after-school internships to effect change in communities utilizing social marketing techniques. For the Ventura County “Quit” campaign, youth designers conceived, designed and created a new, fresh anti-smoking campaign targeting teenagers. The campaign’s goal was to promote a “quit” smoking phone number, and Ventura County reported receiving a significant increase in calls of which 74% reported getting the telephone number from the new campaign.
Project Gallery Page

Organization's Website

Day Labor Station Poster Series

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Public Design Studio (dba: Public Architecture)

Organization's Mission Statement

Public Architecture is a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization established to bring high-level design to underserved people and places. Public Architecture initiates a select series of design projects with innovative environmental and social justice components, and leverages the resources of the architecture and design professions at-large through pro bono design “service grants.” We have recruited over 500 firms to pledge a minimum of 1% of their billable hours to pro bono service.

Organization Website

http://www.publicarchitecture.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Public Architecture purchased Adobe Creative Suite 4.0 through TechSoup to tell the story of our most important social change design initiative, the Day Labor Station.

Each day, over 110,000 people look for day labor work in the U.S. More than 75% of day labor hiring sites occupy spaces meant for other uses, such as street corners and home improvement store parking lots. These sites are far from ideal; their presence in spaces designated for other uses means that they often lack even the most basic amenities.

Day Labor Station, a design initiative of Public Architecture, is a sustainable structure that provides a place for day labor gatherings and facilitates the employment process. The project is one of Public Architecture’s most innovative and important initiatives, yet the issue of day labor in the U.S. is so mired in controversy that communicating the need for the Station is a major challenge to overcome.

Public Architecture’s staff collaborated with a graphic design firm to produce a poster series produced with Adobe Creative Suite 4.0. The posters were intended to clearly lay out the ethical and humanistic imperative for the Station, grounding our proposed design in its socioeconomic, historic, and moral context. One of the posters features a large-scale portrait of one of the day laborers that we interviewed. Surrounded by real quotes from letters of support and rage elicited over the past few years, the portrait shows the human side of this issue, drawing the connections between day laborers’ desire to provide for their families and the larger narrative of the American dream. This image gives the public the opportunity to connect with day laborers as individual human beings, rather than members of a faceless group.

The posters, thanks to TechSoup and Adobe Creative Suite 4.0, make a complex issue simple and compelling, clearly and directly expressing the need for the Station. The posters have given us, and our partner, the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), a new visual and textual language to use in engaging supporters and enactors of this important project. Thank you TechSoup and Adobe for helping us realize this project.

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application/pdf iconDLS panel.pdfSubmitted by publicarchitecture on April 15, 2009 - 1:29pm

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Project Kindle's book, "I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV/AIDS."

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Project Kindle

Organization's Mission Statement

Improving the quality of life for children, young adults and families through recreational experiences, educational programs, and support services.

Organization Website

http://projectkindle.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Project Kindle’s mission is to improve the quality of life for kids who are dealing with HIV/AIDS and other life-altering struggles. One of the hardest things for kids with HIV or AIDS to deal with is the stigma they face from society. We knew that if we wanted to help improve the lives of our kids, we would have to find a way to combat this stigma. We decided to create a book and a video that would be provided cost-free to hundreds of schools across the country. We wanted to give our kids a forum to tell their stories, show off their writings, display their artwork, and let their peers in classrooms around America know that even though they had HIV, they were no different than any other kid.

We worked hard compiling the kids’ writings, scanning and editing their artwork, taking thousands of photos, and putting it all together in a book and video combo that we call “I Know: Kids from Camp Kindle share their stories of living with HIV.”
We initially printed 2000 copies of “I Know” that have been distributed to high school health classes in Los Angeles, Chicago, Nebraska, and Colorado. We have also posted a digital version of the book on our website.

The book can be viewed here: http://www.projectkindle.org/iknowbook.html
The video can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/645436

Our book was created entirely in Adobe InDesign. We also utilized Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat to create “I Know”. We acquired these programs through the Adobe and Tech Soup partnership that provided non-profits with very affordable prices for professional software.
There are simply no software alternatives that work as well and as easily as these programs. We know that high-end professional designers use these products as well and we were very grateful to be given the opportunity to utilize the same tools that the professionals use. We would not have been able to use the products without the discount, and we would not have been able to make our book as amazing as it is without the great Adobe programs!

We have put Adobe products to work in a number of other ways as well. Our website for our organization, www.ProjectKindle.org was built with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver. As was the website for our camping program, www.CampKindle.org. Volunteer designers used Photoshop and Illustrator to create our logo for us.

We know the struggles kids with HIV and AIDS are dealing with, and we know how amazing and brave they are each day. Adobe has helped us share these kids’ stories with the larger world. Because of this pairing of Project Kindle and Adobe, the world is a better place for those living with HIV/AIDS. And it is a safer place, because thousands of American students have access to an educational resource, “I Know” that was created entirely with Adobe products. Thanks Adobe!

URL

http://www.projectkindle.org/iknowbook.html

Submitted by projectkindle on April 15, 2009 - 11:18am

Ventura County "Quit" campaign

Organization Information:

Organization Name

Ojai Valley Youth Foundation

Organization's Mission Statement

Connecting youth and adults for a healthy community

Organization Website

http://www.ovyf.org

Submission Information

Impact Essay

Our message didn’t go up in smoke. Instead it reached an entire county. How do you make a new anti-smoking campaign seem fresh and make an impact? The answer was simple, by combining a talented group of teenagers and Adobe Illustrator. Generation Communication (Gen Com), a program of the non-profit Ojai Valley Youth Foundation, is a youth media agency. In the program, youth work with adult mentors in after-school internships to effect change in communities utilizing social marketing techniques. This unique program gives youth an opportunity to share their voice while developing career skills, learning the principles of graphic design and staying engaged during the critical after-school hours.

24 Gen Com youth interns, ages 12-18 years, were involved in developing Ventura County’s Quit Smoking campaign funded by Ventura County (California) tobacco settlement funds. They conceived, designed and created this campaign, a unique expression of what came to the mind of teenagers to spread the word about quitting smoking. It proved to be the right combination of colors, scary, strong imagery, impactful phrases and the right software program to make an impression on the public.

The campaign’s goal was to promote a “quit” smoking phone number. It consisted of posters displayed in all public buses throughout Ventura County reaching 3.2 million riders; 8.5” x 11” counter cards with 4 versions of 4” x 5” “rave” cards (a common form of communication among our target market) distributed to Latino neighborhood stores reaching 30,000 people; and ads placed in Ventura County publications reaching 90,000 readers. All materials were in Spanish and English.

Teens worked in Adobe Illustrator to create a “grim reaper” figure with balloons framing words that described the effects of smoking such as “premature face wrinkles”, “lung cancer”, “smelly clothes”, and “shorter lifespan”. The colors were intense including orange, deep blue, red and green combined with black. The same graphics were used on all print materials.

Prior to this high impact campaign a radio commercial promoting the “Quit” phone number received little response. Our campaign measurably increased the reach and impact of anti-smoking education and services dramatically in Ventura County. We were able to inform the community about who to call for help in quitting smoking while raising awareness about the dangers of smoking. Our teen interns were successful in not only creating visually arresting images, but in conveying a message that really got noticed. The “quit” smoking hotline in Ventura County noted that 74% of the 800 calls received did so because they got the phone number from our campaign materials.

The anti-smoking campaign really ”lit“ up our community and helped put Gen Com on the map as a teen social marketing agency. The number of projects that Gen Com is working on just keeps growing. For example we recently received a grant from the Allstate Foundation to create a disaster preparedness website in Dreamweaver. We continue to use our winning combination of Adobe products and teenagers to promote a healthy and safe lifestyle.

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application/pdf iconquit_campaign.pdfSubmitted by OVYF on April 2, 2009 - 12:15pm