introduction
The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) has tracked the use of the Internet by Congress since 1998. Our objective has been to identify best practices congressional offices can employ to cope with the challenges and opportunities new technologies have brought and to better utilize technology to meet officesÂ’ needs and goals. In that time, we have seen Web sites go from rarities to necessities. In the five reports CMF has published over this period, we have sought to track the changing use of the Internet by Congress. With the 2007 Gold Mouse Report: Lessons from the Best Web Sites on Capitol Hill we present the progress that has been made on Capitol Hill since 2006.
In 2007 we found progress to be decidedly mixed. The top congressional Web sites have continued to innovate and improve, but the majority of Web sites remain stagnant. While some congressional Web sites are better at providing certain features and tools, most have yet to embrace the concept of creating Web sites that are truly online offices. Though the process need not be extraordinarily difficult or intensive, congressional offices seem to balk at the effort or they focus more on being unique than they do on providing excellent online service. However, the advice we gave last year is still valid: there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. There are excellent blueprints for congressional Web sites; offices merely need to recognize and use them. This report is designed to help them do just that.
The primary purposes of this report are to: 1) recognize the congressional Web sites that successfully utilized the Internet to serve their constituencies and accomplish their goals; and 2) provide practical guidance to all offices on how to improve their sites. To that end, we conducted exhaustive research to identify the best practices, guidelines, and necessary approaches to making a successful congressional Web site. The result of that research is our 2007 Gold Mouse Report. As an additional resource for offices wishing to improve their Web sites, CMF has also produced confidential, customized reports for each of the 618 congressional Web sites we reviewed.
Our 2006 report focused on describing the five building blocks for successful congressional Web sites and on illustrating how an office could utilize them to translate its priorities and strategic goals into a successful presence on the Web. This report complements that with a focus on what using the building blocks looks like in practice. This nuts-and-bolts approach is centered on what a typical congressional site looks like and what kind of content it contains. By focusing on the standard practices, we are able to provide a context for the best practices we have identified. Thus, we present the findings of our extensive review of all Member, committee, and leadership Web sites as a resource for all congressional offices seeking to improve their presence on the Internet. We encourage all offices to view a dynamic Web site as critical to their job and an integral part of the services they provide Americans.
additional information
View the 2007 Mouse Award winners!
Visit the Gold Mouse Briefing page to watch video and download slides from our training session.
Download the entire 
2007_GoldMouseReport (3.35MB)
99 pages
Copyright 2007 by the Congressional Management Foundation
ISBN: 1-930473-96-6
