Part of Something Good (Part 2)

I wrote earlier about getting involved in helping to design Yahoo's first foray into marketing directly to the gay community with the Pride site we rolled out last summer. As that project was winding down in June, I had the opportunity to get involved with another volunteer design project that while not as personal to me, ended up being pretty satisfying as well.

The Yahoo Employee Foundation (YEF) is an entirely employee funded and managed organization that gives grants to local non-profits for causes centered around the environment and local community. It's unique in that it has no corporate oversight; the board is made up entirely of employees and the funding comes entirely through donations that employees make. The group organizes large volunteer opportunities like re-building local homes and gift drives for local kids. Twice a year, donors can sponsor their favorite non-profit to receive a grant, and the organization has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars in its 5+ years of existence. It's a feel-good group that makes me proud to be a Yahoo, and I got involved last year by beginning to donate a small part of my paycheck each week and by joining the Communications Committee.

YEF's website was last redesigned in 2000 or so, and it looked that way. The layout, fonts, and palette were hopelessly outdated; much in the way of a leisure suit, what looked good then certainly did not look good now. It also smacked of the late 90s/early 00s trend of building a site that was not much more than brochure-ware, with limited or no functionality. So a small team of us swooped in to upgrade the site, and it rolled out a few weeks ago with the launch of the annual fundraising campaign, and you can see a screen shot above.

My involvement was again at the conceptual design and information architecture level, as well as art directing and managing the site through production and release. The visual design was done by the designer who works with in my team at Customer Care and she did a great job. The site now looks like it belongs in the modern day and we have plans for adding more functionality in the coming months.

I used to struggle with knowing that I wanted to volunteer somewhere, but I just didn't know how or where. For now, it seems I've found my niche helping out on these do-good side projects that take advantage of my design and management skills. As I mentioned before, it's been largely Christian's influence that has caused me to get involved in these types of volunteer projects, and I thank him greatly for it. His commitment to the greater good is certainly starting to work its way on to me, and I'm certainly better for it.

** As for my day job, we just rolled out a new version of Yahoo! Help Central with a nifty module that pulls content in from Yahoo! Answers, where users ask and answer questions themselves. Check it out at http://help.yahoo.com.