See What’s Out There

Most nonprofits are thinking about how to reach younger audiences. Here is an insightful video about their behaviors. Many of you have already seen this video called A Vision of Students Today, added to YouTube over a month ago and now the 94th most discussed video of all time on YouTube with over 6,000 comments. For those who haven’t, I recommend it (be patient through the first 90 seconds of premise).

The UN Foundation practices much of what See3 has been preaching for years. They understand that an organization, or a campaign, must tell a story to build an audience, and then activate that audience with a compelling call to action. They understand that video is a critical communications tool in creating that narrative, especially online, and they strategically incorporate video onto their web pages. Perhaps most importantly, they are committed to a culture of documentation: they record almost everything.

The Nothing But Nets campaign makes use of various styles of video with varying production values, and each well serves its purpose.
• They documented the efforts of their street teams, and made a fun and inspiring piece out of young people advocating their way onto the Today Show.
• One of their staff members recorded himself in the field helping save lives in Chad in one of the best on-location home videos I’ve seen.
• They use a professionally produced, light-hearted PSA to get the point across, which currently serves as their home page video.

The People Speak also demonstrates the UN Foundation’s dedication to online video, featuring video throughout the web site, running video contests, and inviting supporters to capture and submit their own stories.

Despite their sophisticated sense of the importance of video in nonprofit communications, the UN Foundation still struggles with their video strategy. Now that we have all this footage, what do we do with it? When, if ever, do we need a professional touch? How do we distribute video online to expand our constituency? Where and how should we focus our energies to get the most ROI from our video production resources?

Stay tuned for a future post on the distribution question. On the production side, See3 believes organizations must capture their own footage on an ongoing basis in order to create an archive of material from which to pull stories and show the impact of your work over time. That’s why See3 offers hands-on training on video documentation. And bravo to the UN Foundation and orgs like it who create terrific pieces that keep web site users engaged and inform supporters of your activities. But the most compelling content – the piece that your supporters will feel obligated to pass along, because it captures the essence of your work in a quick and powerful expression of creativity and experienced messaging – will often result from a strategic assessment of your material, understanding of the most visually engaging stories, and incorporation of high production values. These are the lasting pieces that should be used as the flagship media piece of your campaign, that most efficiently and effectively convey your crucial message, and that exemplify the importance and gravity of your work.

Don’t let the tail wag the dog. Video is not a strategy unto itself. Nonprofits need to make the best use of video by strategically incorporating various styles into your outreach, advocacy, and fundraising campaigns.

I feel that we are on the verge of a lot of changes on the web. The Web 2.0 phenomena of portable content and user generated content is just the transition to something deeper. I don’t have a complete articulation of what that is yet, but two things got my attention recently that feel different. One is an ad format where characters in a video — in this case a Mac ad - seem to control a banner in another part of the page. That’s clever (though not terrible complex technically) and I feel it is a harbinger of more serious playing with web space to come.

The other item is about Facebook’s new ads. The interesting and even alarming thing is how Facebook is set to use your personal data (if you are on it) to deliver to you contextual ads that are generated from your activity off site. So, for example, I go to Blockbuster’s site and Facebook knows this and next time I am on Facebook I am getting Blockbuster promotions. You can read more about Facebook’s system here.

Here’s the new Mac ad format:

A commentator on YouTube said that the best thing those Mac/PC ads have been good for is a template for parody. How true! This format has been used by quite a few folks to poke fun at other things and to get people’s attention to make serious points.

The Center for American Progress uses this as part of a new campaign to educate Americans about what it means to be a Progressive. Here’s one of the spots:

You can watch others here.

The 1 Second Film is one of the best campaigns I have seen. It has:

* Video
* Charity
* Travel
* Art
* Optimism

and… last but not least… Oprah

Watch the videos and see how an idea blossomed and then grew some more. The site is well done and you can learn a lot from the small elements and how they put it all together.

Now, what can you do with your organization to harness this kind of creativity and passion? Imagine what it could do for you.

In the most recent issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy I am quoted in an article titled “Telling Moving Stories.” The article features the case study of our client the American Jewish World Service. (Click here to view the front page of the issue.)

You need to subscribe to see the whole thing, but here’s an except:

When the American Jewish World Service used to talk about using video to illustrate its overseas aid projects, it usually meant gathering enough footage for a seven-minute spot to be shown to the people who would attend its annual fund-raising dinners.

But the Internet has changed all that.

The New York organization last year collected more than 60 hours of footage of the organization’s workers and volunteers helping AIDS patients in Uganda, tsunami victims in India, and poor residents of El Salvador, and it soon plans to use that extra footage for an extensive online video campaign. The collection of two- to three-minute spots will run on the group’s Web site, and the charity will also post video clips of interviews with volunteers on the popular online video site YouTube. The organization is also creating DVD’s of some of the videos to send to prospective donors.

What’s more, the charity has trained some of its staff members to shoot video using inexpensive cameras, with the goal of creating a library of footage that it can use to create fresh online videos for years to come. The cost for this effort — which included the purchase of four cameras and video-editing equipment — was about $2,000.

Susan Rosenberg, American Jewish World Service’s director of communications, says these projects are important to the organization because video, more than any other medium, can tell powerful, emotional stories that move supporters and donors to take action. Instead of simply telling potential donors about the organization’s overseas outreach work, it can show them the people it helps and allow them to hear volunteers and those they help in their own words.
“Increasingly, audio and video on the Web are critical tools [for nonprofit groups] for communicating to people about the work they’re doing, and I only see that intensifying,” Ms. Rosenberg says.

With YouTube’s announcement in September that it plans to dedicate a portion of its video-sharing site exclusively to charities, experts say many nonprofit groups are likely to follow American Jewish World Service’s lead.
…
Because of these factors, groups that attempt to use their internal, benefit-dinner videos for an online audience will find their efforts largely ignored, says Michael Hoffman, president of See3 Communications Company, a Chicago consulting group that helps charities produce online video campaigns. See3, for example, helped the American Jewish World Service create its documentary-style videos for YouTube and other Web sites, including the company’s own video portal, DoGooderTV.

“You can’t produce that dinner video over and over, three or four times a year, because most organizations don’t have the budget to do that,” Mr. Hoffman says of those richly produced videos, which typically cost between $20,000 and $75,000.

Instead, he encourages nonprofit groups to produce documentary-style videos that show their work and cast their workers as real people. Such videos can be done inexpensively — requiring only the investment in a digital video camera, video-editing software, and staff time.
Because many digital cameras and editing software are inexpensive, that investment can be less than $1,000.

“The model of continuous documentation is so important,” Mr. Hoffman says.

“If you’re shooting on a regular basis and capturing your work on a regular basis, there are great opportunities to show the kid who walks into your program timidly on the first day and three years later is the leader of a group,”he says. “To have the documentation of the transformation gives you material for powerful stories.”

We are proud to announce the launch of Global Development Matters a new site built by See3.

The site and corresponding outreach campaign are designed to educate the American public about why US engagement in the world and the alleviation of global poverty is critical. As we say on the site, it’s the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.

The site includes lots of video (with more coming), quizzes on global development and extensive Q/A on a variety of global development topics. A marketing campaign is launching this month. We would love feedback on the site and we are interested in having groups that share our agenda promote the site as well as grab and embed the media materials for their own use.

The site’s sponsor is the Center for Global Development (CGD), the leading think tank on US policy toward the developing world. Because CGD is not an advocacy organization, the asks on the site mostly come from other organizations working for the same goals, such as Oxfam, Mercy Corp and One. There are many possible areas of cooperation with other groups, including a push soon to do home screenings of a documentary series on global development issues.

As Lawrence MacDonald, Director of Communications and Policy at CGD wrote:

“Why has CGD launched this initiative? Like you, I believe that the United States can be a powerful force for good in the world. Polls consistently show that Americans want the U.S. to become more effective in helping to end global poverty. Yet elected officials often tell us that voters don’t seem to care about development. This happens partly because we in the development policy community have not yet done a good enough job of communicating with Americans who care deeply about poverty reduction but are not policy experts.

The 2008 election is our chance to change that. Several national groups are already working to make global development a part of the national debate. With the election now just one year away, CGD is supporting this effort by offering new media—including short, compelling online videos—that tell the stories of people in developing countries whose lives are being shaped, for good or for ill, by decisions made in rich countries half-a-world away.”

Please visit the site and sign up, tell your friends and lets make a difference this year.

At the Communications Network conference in Miami I am right now listening to Victor d’Allant from the Skoll Foundation’s Social Edge community. He is showing video and talking about how, for them, it is all about stories. They invite people to tell them stories in something they call X-Interviews. “Just a white wall, cheap video camera, tripod and a blue tooth microphone for good sound.”

They are uploading their videos on other communities and places like iTunes. Don’t expect everyone to know who you are or that they know what you do. Go and find people online in other places.

Here’s the video he showed. He stopped it right at the good part — and said if you want to see the rest you have to go to Social Edge. “I need traffic,” he said. (Of course, with YouTube, I embedded this right here, without going to Social Edge. That’s the promise and power of portable media — you don’t have to be the convener of all the audiences for your stuff.)