Make the Genesis Featured Post widget title link to the specified category archives.

functions.php

<?php

add_filter( 'widget_title', 'custom_widget_title', 10, 3 );
/**
 * Callback for WordPress 'widget_title' filter.
 * 
 * Create a link for the title of the Genesis Featured Widget if a category is 
 * specified.
 * 
 * @package WordPress
 * @category Widget
 * @author Ryan Meier http://www.rfmeier.net
 * 
 * @param string $title The widget title
 * @param object $instance The instance of the current widget
 * @param string $id_base the base id
 * @return string $title The widget title
 */
function custom_widget_title( $title, $instance=false, $id_base='' ){
        
        // if not the featured image post, return title
        if( 'featured-post' != $id_base )
                return $title;
        
        // if the instance does not specify a category, return title
        if( empty( $instance['posts_cat'] ) )
                return $title;
        
        // get the category link from the id
        $category_link = get_category_link( $instance['posts_cat'] );
        
        // get the category name from the id
        $category_name = get_the_category_by_ID( $instance['posts_cat'] );
        
        // build the category link
        $title_link = sprintf( '<a href="%s" title="%s">%s</a>', 
                                esc_url( $category_link ),
                                esc_attr( $category_name ),
                                esc_html( $title ) );
        
        // return the category link title
        return $title_link;
        
}

Perfect- thanks!!

What if you are using a widget and you aren't specifying a category, and instead are using 'all categories' - anyway to make it link to the blog?

Thanks @rfmeier!

@genevishgraphics, I know your question is almost a year old, but perhaps it will help someone else. In my tests, setting the category to "uncategorized" still returns the uncategorized posts. I was guess that if you were not having the same results, you could remove lines 25-27 so the function would not check to see if the category was empty.