Mellon Foundation

The Mellon Foundation was established to strengthen, promote, and defend the arts and humanities as essential to democratic societies. They have built partnerships with their grantees to enable projects that unlock deeper understanding and activate cultural expression while learning and evolving with the world around us.

Work & Co collaborated with Mellon to create a dynamic and immersive website that reflects Mellon's commitment to advancing the arts, humanities, and social justice, and positions grantees at the forefront. Work & Co led design concepting and execution, technical strategy, and the build.

To bring the new vision to life, the team deeply immersed themselves in the messaging platform work and the new brand visual identity, conducting interviews with Mellon leadership and staff and multiple rounds of design concepts presented for key approvals. The team developed a new Ideas-led content strategy, shifting the focus from program areas to the diverse range of Mellon's work across various domains. This approach consolidated organizational siloes and created a unified presence that resonates with a broader audience.

The new Mellon.org features:

A dynamic homepage: reflecting Mellon’s dynamic and adaptive approach to grantmaking, the site features a shifting range of different stories, imagery, and media.

Multivocal perspectives: the new site leads with ideas fundamental to Mellon’s work and mission, and the topics covered by Mellon’s grantmaking – ranging from higher education to civic engagement to artists and monuments. Visitors can learn not only through Mellon’s voice, but also through the voices of its grantees, staff, experts, and broader network with a variety of media like video, audio, slideshows, and more, illustrating Mellon’s impact through storytelling.

Best-in-class resources: as a longtime leader in the philanthropy space, Mellon offers a hub of resources, including information about its grantmaking process, calls for concepts, areas of focus, and how to engage with Mellon more closely.

Vanessa Corrêa, Chief Communications Cfficer at Mellon noted “the site beautifully reflects the energy and focus of Mellon’s mission and reimagines how philanthropy can present itself.”