May 2006

Chapter Web Site uses 'scrapbook' to demonstrate the impact of Thrivent Financial volunteers

Iowa County WI Chapter receives Web Site of the Month honors

Congratulations to the leaders of the Iowa County WI Chapter, especially to Kipalee Bakken, financial director, and Julie Koss, records director, whose site has been named Chapter Web Site of the Month for May.

"Our goal is to make the site informative, inspirational and user friendly," says Kipalee. "Every time people visit, we want them to read an inspirational story from our scrapbook of chapter activities, note a date for an upcoming activity they can support, or easily find links and forms they can use to get involved."

Although the site is "still under construction" according to Kipalee, she and Julie are definitely meeting their goal. The site offers excellent details about the chapter and upcoming activities, provides easy-to-access forms for volunteers who want to request funding from the chapter, and does a great job, with words and pictures, of "telling the story" about the wonderful Thrivent chapter volunteer activities that have taken place in its "Scrapbook of Activities" section. Overall, the site demonstrates the good that has and can be accomplished by Thrivent Financial volunteers working though the chapter.

The features they use on their site is a mixture of ideas they incorporated from previous site of the month winners and their own creative ideas. Here are some of the features that make this site a winner:

• The Scrapbook of Activities section includes pictures and write-ups of various chapter activities, helping to demonstrate the impact Thrivent Financial volunteers have in our communities.
• The home page includes an inviting introductory message and a calendar of upcoming activities.
• The calendar is up-to-date and provides excellent details about each activity listed.
• The About Our Chapter section includes the chapter mission statement.
• The Meet Our Chapter Leaders section includes a picture of the leaders and nice write-ups about each leader.
• The Visit Our Congregations section lists all of the congregations in the chapter as well as pictures of each church.
• The Request/Report Forms section includes links to forms that volunteers need to or can use before, during and after activities, including customized forms to use if requesting funds from more than one chapter.

"We looked a previous site of the month winners and incorporated some of their ideas with our new ideas," says Kipalee.

We encourage you to visit the site at www.lutheransonline.com/iowacountywichapter. Congratulations Kipalee and Julie on a great job, and keep up the great work!