Forum Launches New “Mission-Forward” Website
Date Posted: July 22, 2025
Posted In: Discussion, Featured, What we are thinking about,
by Tom Finan, Executive Director/Co-Founder, Construction Forum
You may have noticed that when you click on articles in the Forum’s newsletter there’s a different look to the web pages at our website ConstructForSTL.org.
There was a lot of very intentional effort to that look and functionality. The result is something we’re very excited about.
At the Forum’s June 25th event at ReNüTeq we did a soft launch of the new site. A few weeks later we’re more excited every day about the possibilities this new site offers.
In 2010, when I wrote the document that resulted in the Forum, it included a focus on the importance of communication and information aggregation to our proposed mission. Our previous website was launched shortly after our incorporation in late 2013.
Old Automobile
It was based on my experience in four decades as a business publisher. And that was how we shared information with you for a dozen years. Like a dependable old family automobile, our website was functional… until it wasn’t.
Late last year Forum Deputy Executive Director Diana Wilhold and I visited with several of the 70-plus sponsors who make our work possible.
One of the things we learned from these meetings was that many of you in the industry are primarily familiar with the Forum as a communicator and convener through our newsletter, website, and events.
While we are very proud of these initiatives, they are means to an end – namely our mission of convening the stakeholders in the St. Louis Region’s built environment to create inclusive, robust employment and economic growth.
20,000 Articles
With that in mind, we set about revamping the Forum’s website to be more mission-forward. Any of you who are responsible for a website understand the daunting nature of this effort.
As stated, the Forum’s website was designed a dozen years ago as a repository of industry articles and a portal for our initiatives. It received about a quarter-million page views in the last year. With close to 20,000 articles and an extremely dated graphic user interface, access to the Forum’s programs and services was getting buried in the garble.
We elected to partner with MayeCreate Design, a digital creative firm with a two-decade history of partnering with companies and non-profits – many within the construction industry. After intense collaboration in a process that moved from aspirational to nit-picking we arrived at the mission-focused Forum website we launched on June 25th.
“We are THE Forum”
The home page begins with a video reel of Forum activity and the declaration “WE ARE THE FORUM: We Are Construction Forum. We are a mission-focused, industry “backbone” nonprofit. Construction Forum provides the connective tissue for all the stakeholders in the built environment for systems change directed at inclusive, robust employment and economic growth. We convene, we communicate, we build collaborations. We are THE Forum.”
Within the new site you will find all of the articles you see in the newsletter, albeit in groups such as “What We Are Thinking” and “Featured”, with options to see more. But you’ll also find far easier access to:
- Initiatives, such as as our DOL registered apprenticeship program
- Directories, such as our career profiles and M/WBE video interviews
- Resources, such as our workforce transportation portal
- Detailed explanations of how the Forum works
- Ways to partner, including examples of previous services delivered by the Forum
Please take a few minutes, and review the site and see what the Forum has to offer for you and/or your organization. Let us know how we can make it better.
This is just the beginning of what’s next.