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Featured case study / The centennial year

United Way of Rhode Island

A hundred years of Rhode Islanders showing up for each other, and one year to tell it everywhere at once.

Client
United Way of Rhode Island
Year
2026, the centennial
In this set
Emergency relaunch, marcomm, brand, book, film, web, live event
Seen from above, people in United Way of Rhode Island centennial shirts standing together in the shape of the number 100

The 100, made of people. From the centennial book.

For its hundredth year, United Way of Rhode Island needed one story told everywhere: in print, on film, on the web and in the street.

The challenge

It started with a website down to a holding page, weeks before a once-in-a-lifetime date. United Way of Rhode Island needed it back first, then one voice across everything: how it talks about itself, a book worthy of a hundred years, films for the big night, a website that works as hard as its 211 line, and an evening that put Rhode Islanders inside the story.

What we did

  • Emergency relaunch
  • Marcomm realignment
  • Brand
  • Book design
  • Film
  • Website
  • Live experiences
  • Engineering

The thinking

The 100 is made of people. Every piece keeps coming back to faces, names and towns, from the book’s last spread to the screens at WaterFire.

The result

8

live experiences at WaterFire

Plus the 100-year book, three films and a rebuilt bilingual website, all in the centennial year.

Day one / September 9, 2026

Three and a half hours to launch.

Before the centennial, there was the emergency. unitedwayri.org was down to a holding page, and every old link led nowhere except three: the 211 help line, the donation form and the volunteer portal. At 9:03 a.m. the brief landed: put the new homepage live by lunch, with every link working.

  1. The brief. A redesigned homepage from Figma, a 19-point edit list, and a 12:30 launch.

  2. Every link real. Where the old pages were gone, we rebuilt them from saved copies of the old site: 15 inner pages, so no button led nowhere.

  3. 211, rebuilt. The help line’s page redone in the new design, with 47 pages relinked to it, and the board and 24 news releases recovered from the archive.

  4. One deploy. The site and its backend moved onto a single Cloudflare deploy, so the pages and the staff portal always ship together.

  5. Two languages. The build to make the whole site bilingual begins.

  6. The centennial. Eight live experiences at WaterFire, five weeks after a holding page.

By the numbers

One year. Every channel.

1926The Providence Community Fund, where the story starts
3Films for the centennial
79Public pages, rebuilt, in English and Spanish
8Live experiences across two tents
7Personal keepsakes for every guest
105Endpoints behind it all, on one Cloudflare Worker

Brand and book design

A hundred years, one book.

From the 1926 Community Fund to the 211 line and the century ahead: archival plates set inside the centennial’s rings, timelines, and the voices of the people who built it.

The book’s title spread: United for a century, 100 years of United Way of Rhode Island
01

United for a century

Our history, the first 100 years: an archival photo of the fair share drive inside red and blue rings
02

Our history: the first 100 years

A century of impact: a timeline from 1921 to 1942 with archival photographs
03

A century of impact

The United Way is the fair share way: an archival banner beside a quote on navy
04

The fair share way

The two-million-dollar touchdown campaign, with archival photos on green
05

The two-million-dollar touchdown

From community fund to United Way: a timeline of the organization’s names since 1926
06

From community fund to United Way

351-6500, the lifeline that started with a mother’s desperate call, beside a black rotary phone
07

351-6500: the lifeline

Everyday Equity: building a just future, one day at a time
08

Everyday Equity

The next century of unity, beside the 211 bus
09

The next century of unity

Five verbs for the next century: give, volunteer, connect, vote, advocate
10

Five verbs for the next century

A closing reflection on navy, beside an archival photograph of a mill building
11

The next hundred years

Film

Three films for the hundredth.

An opener, the century in three minutes, and a closer: produced by Slate for the centennial.

1:00

Centennial Film: Intro

The opener.

3:05

UWRI History

A hundred years in three minutes.

1:50

Centennial Film: Outro

The closer.

Website

unitedwayri.org, rebuilt.

Every page rebuilt, a Spanish twin for the core of the site, a newsroom the staff run themselves, and a homepage that leads with giving and 211.

The unitedwayri.org homepage: United for Rhode Island, with photo circles of United Way people past and present
01 / 05

A front door for the state

United for Rhode Island, in giant type, ringed by United Way’s people past and present. The circles rise in, drift like bubbles and slide at their own depths as you scroll.

The 211 page: Looking for support? 211 can help, with call, text and chat
02 / 05

211, first

The statewide help line gets the clearest page on the site: call, text or chat from the first screen, free and confidential, around the clock.

The Spanish homepage: Unidos por Rhode Island
03 / 05

In English and Spanish

The core of the site has a Spanish twin, and every Spanish link works, even before its page is translated: it lands on the English page instead of a dead end.

The United Way of Rhode Island newsroom
04 / 05

A newsroom they run

A staff portal with accounts and roles publishes news, events and job listings straight to the site, scheduled to the minute in any time zone.

Drowning in the Ocean State, an immersive data story about ALICE households
05 / 05

Drowning in the Ocean State

An immersive data story about the households living above the poverty line and still short of the basics, built for the web and for a touchscreen kiosk.

The new homepage on a phone
Years of showing up, here’s to the next 100: the people’s 100 on the homepage

Live experiences / WaterFire, October 17, 2026

Every screen knew you.

Eight experiences for two VIP tents, designed and engineered in-house: photoreal, touchable, and all talking to each other live.

The Welcome Wall

Every arrival, by town and by role, as the night fills up.

Rhode Island Is Calling

Dial the number that became 211 on a rotary phone, and your call joins the line.

Thirty-Nine Hands

Light your town on the map. Keep all 39 burning, together.

All of Us

Who’s in this tent: a sky of lights, one for every guest, drawn into constellations.

Turn of the Century

Turn the crank to a year, and the board answers with what Rhode Island did then.

The Hundred

The 100 is made of you: every guest becomes one of its lights.

The Cradle

The night’s partners, lit on WaterFire’s braziers over the river.

The credits

The night ends like a film, starring every guest who said yes.

The Centennial Pass

Scan once. Be known all night.

  1. Every screen shows a code that changes each minute. A guest’s own phone scans it: nothing to install.
  2. Six questions, once: name, town, why you’re here, a year, a word.
  3. From then on, every screen greets you by first name if you said yes, and stamps your pass.
  4. Each stamp leaves a keepsake drawn from what you did at that screen.
Scan and join
Your pass
A stamp, live
Keepsake one: Welcome, your guest number and the year that matters to you Keepsake two: this call was for you, from Rhode Island Is Calling Keepsake three: your town held on the map of Thirty-Nine Hands Keepsake four: your light on the sky in All of Us Keepsake five: the year you turned the board to in Turn of the Century Keepsake six: you’re in the 100, your light among The Hundred Keepsake seven: starring you, from the end credits

Seven keepsakes, each drawn on the guest’s own phone from what they did at that screen

Under the hood

One Worker. Every screen, scan and sale.

  • One Cloudflare Worker runs the website, the staff portal, the shop, the pass and every live screen.
  • 105 endpoints and 48 database tables, with a live relay room for each experience on Durable Objects.
  • Show control paired every screen like a TV app and ran the night’s cues across both tents.
  • Load-tested with 600 simulated phones checking in at once: not one stamp lost or doubled.
Explore the systems map
The systems map: one Worker behind every screen, scan and sale, drawn as a particle map
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Your move

Tell us what’s spinning.

What’s launching, what’s stuck, what keeps you up at night. A few sentences is plenty. We’ll take it from there.

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