Audubon-California Wages Online Campaign to Save Birds & Wildlife with WeGo.com's Service.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 7, 1999--

The National Audubon Society-California has strengthened its online campaign to protect and restore wildlife habitats by offering advanced communication and chapter building functionality from WeGo.com on its Web site.

Audubon-California recognized the potential of its Web site -- first developed in 1996 -- to foster member communication, advance environmental education and lead legislative advocacy campaigns. However, like most nonprofits, limited funding, human resources, and technical know-how kept the organization from providing a state-of-the-art Web experience.

"We've been wanting to do more with our site, but existing solutions are expensive and difficult to maintain," said Daniel Taylor, Executive Director of Audubon's 65,000-member California program.

"Our goal is not to be Web experts; it is to be the premiere nature education organization in the state in order to build conservation awareness and activism. WeGo.com's functionality gives us the interactivity our site lacked and allows us to maintain the site easily with literally no in-house technical expertise."

Audubon-California staff expect this suite of free, easy-to-use functionality from WeGo.com to strengthen local conservation action by offering vital features such as discussion boards, chat rooms, calendars, and newsletters and publications to its 53 chapters statewide. To help support its active chapter network, the society introduced WeGo.com's chapter-building Web module that helps chapters create new sites or revamp existing ones.

"WeGo.com understands what nonprofits need," Taylor said. "The service is easy to use and allows us to pick and choose the features that are relevant on the state and chapter levels. By working with the WeGo.com team, we are realizing new possibilities of leveraging our Web site to achieve our mission and to serve our members."

Chapters currently formulate annual conservation priorities, which establish the basis of a policy platform effectuated through legislation, media and grassroots organizing. Taylor anticipates that equipped with the right tools, chapter Web sites can help engage members to support conservation and education initiatives locally and statewide.

"Our grassroots structure is the cornerstone of our organization," said Taylor. Partnering with WeGo.com will advance our chapter outreach program, which provides leadership, coordination and support services for community leaders."

About WeGo.com's Free, Fully-Hosted Web Service

Palo Alto, CA-based WeGo.com serves organizations and their members including trade associations, nonprofits, alumni, political organizations, trade unions, and groups of all types and sizes by helping them tap the power of community and commerce on the Web. Offering the widest range of functionality available today, the WeGo.com service, where organizations at international, national, regional and local levels can build their own portals or intranets, is free and fully hosted. It adds interactivity to existing Web sites or creates new ones, and required no technical expertise or software downloads.

WeGo.com's service is supported by mutually beneficial affinity marketing programs that help groups and their members benefit from the world of e-commerce. Founded in 1998, the company is backed and advised by a group of private investors, which includes CEOs and senior executives from leading technology firms. To learn more about WeGo visit www.wego.com.

About Audubon

In partnership with their 53 chapters and 65,000 member, Audubon-California conserves and restores important California ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity. Since the early 1900's, Audubon has been a leader in the local and statewide struggle to conserve California's vast array of birds, wildlife and natural habitats from threats as diverse as excessive logging, rampant urban development and air and water pollution. Audubon-California works to develop in all Californians an appreciation, awareness and understanding of birds, other wildlife and their habitats and their link to people. To preserve California's biological diversity, conservation must be a value shared by all its citizens. To learn more about Audubon-California visit www.audubon-ca.org.