Blue Mouse Monkey Blog

We are very proud to announce the launch of the new website for Upstream Public Health. Upstream is an Oregon non-profit that researches innovative public health solutions and moves them into the mainstream dialogue, providing expertise in regional policy and decision-making. Upstream’s old website obscured the impact of their work. Upstream enlisted Blue Mouse Monkey to provide them with a distinctive platform to frame issues, provide timely information to their audiences, and express the values and upbeat personality of the organization.

Well, I imagine there must have been a battle, because major brands don’t usually acquiesce to this kind of thing.

Leavenworth, WA, the “Bavarian” town is remarkable (if for no other reason) in that the Leavenworth brand is apparently strong enough to dominate major national brands. Corporations must forgo their brand logos and fonts for something that “blends” with the rest of the town, in this case Wells Fargo bank.

Another instance of brand subservience: Bank of America.

The Starbucks brand relinquishing its visual identity in Leavenworth, WA.

Even Subway has to use a fancy “old fashioned” font, although they are allowed to keep the two-color aspect to their name. 

Blue Mouse Monkey, Inc. is now officially certified with the state of Oregon as a WBE – that’s a Women Business Enterprise. It took two tries – the first attempt was thwarted by a joint lease agreement. Now that the BlueMM office space lease is solely under Julia Stoops’ name, the certification was approved. It also helped that Blue, the furry Blue Mouse Monkey, is a girl.

Blue Mouse Monkey wants you to learn about your economy through a new lens! Did you know that existing, expanding companies contribute most to U.S. job creation? Not startups and not big companies, but medium sized-companies. In fact, from 1990 to 2008 existing companies generated 71 percent more new jobs than startups. And from 1995 – 2009 Stage 2 companies (those with 10-99 employees) represented only 10.9% of all establishments but they contribute a whopping 33.2% of total job expansion. The YourEconomy.org website has a larger dataset than the US Census Bureau, and they are able to crunch the numbers and come up with these previously unknown facts. See Blue Mouse Monkey’s case study and visit the YourEconomy.org website.

The Blue Mouse Monkey has a name (Blue) a gender (she’s a girl) and a personality (adventuresome.) She posts snapshots of her travels to the Blue Mouse Monkey Facebook page. Here she is in Seoul, Korea, and the Douz palm oasis in Tunisia. Check out the page to see Blue in more exotic locations – oh, and don’t forget to Like while you’re there!

Blue Mouse Monkey’s Julia Stoops and and Shelise Gieseke presented a talk yesterday about User Experience Design called “Website Hotseat: Do you know what your visitors are feeling?” at the WVDO (Willamette Valley Development Officers) annual conference.

After a brief overview of what User Experience Design actually means and why it’s important, Julia critiqued several websites point-by-point on their level of user-friendliess. Which, unfortunately, was generally low.

The presentation seemed to have struck a chord with many attendees and Julia and Shelise received lots of good feedback. Julia’s personal mission is to beautify the Internet one website at a time, and today’s talk was a reminder of how much work there is to be done in that regard.

Blue Mouse Monkey is pleased to announce the launch of  SHnibbins dog snacks — the website and the product itself. We provided full branding and design services to enable SHnibbins to bring their new line of heart-shaped dog snacks to the market. From logo, letterhead and package designs, through to content creation, audio, website and social media, we created a new brand that focuses on the simple joy of doggie love. Get SHnibbified!

The McKenzie River Gathering Foundation is a wonderful Oregon funder that focuses on racial and economic justice, peace, environmental protection, and LGBTQ rights. Each year they have a fundraiser party, and it’s always quite a shindig. This year performers include Spoken Word artist Toni Hill and Afro-Cuban musician Virginia Lopez. More info here.

This year Blue Mouse Monkey is sponsoring a table of ten. The party’s at the Ambridge this Saturday April 21st, starting at 7:00. Get your ticket here and support an amazing local foundation. See you there!

This study, by M&R Research Labs and NTEN, is beautifully organized and elegantly laid out. It’s packed with the latest trends in online messaging, fundraising, advocacy, mobile communications, and social media. AND, IT’S FREE! Download the 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study.

Some of the most interesting results include:

• There was a 19% increase in online revenue from 2010 to 2011, driven almost entirely by a 20% increase in the number of gifts (average gifts held steady).
• Advocacy response rates increased by a whopping 28% in the same time period.
• Although one-time gifts are still the mainstay of nonprofit fundraising, monthly giving grew faster than one-time giving.
• Facebook fan pages grew by 70% in 2011!