WASHINGTON, DC — The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) recognized the House Budget Committee’s website yesterday for having one of the best websites in Congress. CMF analyzed all 620 congressional websites, including those of all Senate and House Members, committees (both majority and minority sites), and official leadership sites The Budget Committee’s site, www.budget.house.gov, was one of only 135 websites commended by CMF in its 111th Congress Gold Mouse Project. 

“The House Budget Committee’s website is a vital part of our effort to reach out and help the American people better understand the federal budget and I am honored that the site received this award,” Spratt said. “I would also like to congratulate my staff for the hard work they put in to creating and maintaining the site to better serve the public.”

The 111th Congress Gold Mouse Awards are part of CMF’s Partnership For A More Perfect Union, which seeks to improve the quality of communication between Members and their constituents.  For this project, CMF partnered with researchers from the Harvard Kennedy School, Northeastern University, University of California–Riverside, and the Ohio State University to study how Members of Congress can use the Internet to improve communications with their constituents and to promote greater participation in the legislative process.

“One of the key reasons for the awards is to highlight best practices so offices can improve their sites by learning from those already excelling in online communications,” said Beverly Bell, CMF’s Executive Director. “Websites like the House Budget Committee’s serve as a prime example that we hope other congressional offices will follow.”

“The Congressional Management Foundation congratulates the House Budget Committee for having a website that is among the best-of-the-best on Capitol Hill, and we are pleased to present them with the 111th Congress Gold Mouse Award.”

Websites were graded on how well they incorporate five core principles that CMF identified through extensive research as critical for effectiveness:  know your audience, provide timely and targeted content that meets their needs, make the site easy to use, foster interaction both on and offline, and add value through innovation.

Using these core principles, an evaluation framework was developed by CMF and their research partners, which would be fair and objective while still taking into account important qualitative factors that affect a visitor's experience on a website.   

The 111th Congress Gold Mouse Project report, a full listing winners, and other comparative data is available on CMF’s Partnership For A More Perfect Union website at www.pmpu.org.