Mission:
To value the lives of women around the world.

Background:
Founded as the Women's Heritage Museum in 1985, the International Museum of Women operated as a "museum without walls" for more than ten years, producing several exhibits, hosting public programs, sponsoring an annual book fair, and providing resources for Women's History Month. In 1997, the museum was renamed and in 2006, it launched Imagining Ourselves, A Global Generation of Women, its first interactive, multilingual online exhibit designed to reach a worldwide audience. I.M.O.W. plans to open a permanent exhibition site in San Francisco in 2012.

Outstanding Web Features:
On International Women's Day 2008, the museum launched its second online global exhibition, Women, Power and Politics, about women claiming — and exercising — their power to change their lives and their communities for the better. The ten-month-long project features podcasts, guest bloggers, political cartoons, maps, a timeline, RSS feeds, and community-building features. The previous exhibition, Imagining Ourselves, was created to inspire women in their twenties and thirties to make positive change in their lives, their communities, and around the world. Curated between March 2006 and December 2007, it features 20,420 Web pages of original artwork, film, photography, music, poetry, and personal essays submitted by participants — all responding to the question "What Defines Your Generation of Women?" The I.M.O.W. site features an archive of all its exhibitions.