Two Reading Room sites have chance to win prestigious Charity Times Award

15/09/2008 - London

Two Reading Room websites have been shortlisted in the Charity Times Award (www.charitytimes.com) ‘Best Use of Web’ category. This award recognises outstanding innovation, accessibility and usability for charities online.

The Charity Times Awards are now in their fifth year, and are among the most prestigious in the charity sector. The 2008 Awards will be judged by highly regarded professionals, and we are delighted that not just one, but two of our sites have been so warmly received.

Whizz-Kidz (http://www.whizz-kidz.org.uk) is the focus of a multimedia campaign including email marketing and a Facebook application. It is aimed at allowing disabled children and young people to live a more independent and active childhood. The site is recognised for being interactive, informative and exceeding its targets. The site encourages communication between children and young people with disabilities as well as allowing visitors to donate easily.

The YHA website (http://www.yha.org.uk) was designed with the consumer in mind, resulting in a contemporary, e-business site. Since its re-launch, revenue has increased 97% and YHA were named in the ‘Top 5 Best UK hotels’ by the 2007 Observer Travel Awards. The website allows YHA to better realise and promote their values of community, recreation and education for young people whilst maximising revenue potential in a testing economic climate.

Margaret Manning, Reading Room CEO said of the award nominations:
“Reading Room has a long and successful history of working with charities to ensure that we not only achieve our goals and targets but exceed them. The internet is a fantastic communications platform for charities, and can enable them to reach diverse audiences both amongst the people they are trying to help and potential supporters. We help our clients do this by keeping a strong focus on the user, whilst ensuring that site owners can track their return on investment. We are delighted to have our dedication to usability and accessibility in this field recognised.”

The winners will be announced at the award ceremony, which will be held on September 18th 2008 at the Royal Lancaster Hotel.