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.
I am so impressed with the Obama campaign’s use of video. They are really making video a central part of their online strategy and I am certain it has an impact on the crowds they are drawing and the enthusiasm they are seeing.
I got a link to this video by email today. It is the 5th anniversary of Obama’s speech against the war, on October 2, 2002.
Here’s an excerpt from that speech:
“What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.”
-Barack Obama, October 2, 2002
It shows impressive foresight. But as powerful as it is to read those words, see what they did with the video when they only had 13 seconds of the original speech on tape.
There is nothing here particularly complicated in terms of shooting or editing video. If your organization isn’t finding a way to start using this tool, you are missing a tremendous opportunity.
One of the things we know about email fundraising and advocacy is that requests that are timely are more likely to result in gifts. For example, if legislation is being voted on today and I get an email today asking me to call my Senator, I am more likely to do it than if I received the request two weeks earlier. In fundraising, if I am told that we have 36 hours to meet a deadline so that food aid can be delivered with the next convoy — this is a compelling ask.
I have noticed recently the added idea of speaking to me like I am an insider. I am seeing this mostly in political fundraising. I got a note from Barak Obama last week. Have a look:
I’m just now leaving New York, and you’ve got me fired up. Nearly 25,000 people came together last night for the rally.
Here’s the video:
I’m inspired by your continued energy and support. But we’re still shy of our goal of 500,000 donations to the campaign by Sunday’s deadline.
Make an additional donation now and help us get there:
https://donate.barackobama.com/promise
More soon,
Barack
Paid for by Obama for America
This email was sent to: michael@see3.net
To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe
The subject of the email above was “Hey.” Hey? As in, “Hey, I just wanted to fire off a quick note to my buddy.” The signature was the uber-personal “Barack”. Yeah, we go way back.
The next day I got an email from Michelle Obama with the subject line “re:Hey” It’s like we’re all friends on a normal chain of emails.
Today, I received an email from Rahm Emanuel at the DCCC.
Hi Michael,
I know it’s Sunday so I don’t want to take up much of your time. You know me, I like to speak frankly.
Here’s the reality check: This election is far from in the bag. There are 60 Democrats sitting in seats that Bush carried in 2004 and there are eight Republicans sitting in Democratic seats. We have a lot of seats to protect and an historic opportunity to expand the playing field. The resources we have now will determine whether or not we win next November.
The FEC end of quarter deadline is MIDNIGHT TONIGHT and the DCCC is just $38,000 shy of its goal. House Dems are matching every gift until midnight tonight so please give what you can before this critical deadline.
http://www.dccc.org/r/99581/3018530/
On to Victory,
Rahm
Sent Wirelessly Via Blackberry
I like the urgency. We have hours to go and we need your help. But “Sent Wirelessly Via Blackberry”???? Yeah, sure. I wonder how my good buddy Rahm got all of this far at the bottom of the email:
To unsubscribe from this email list, please paste this URL into your browser:
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To make sure you always get our emails add dccc@dccc.org to your address book. Find out more about adding us to your address book here.
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Paid for by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
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Contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are not tax deductible.
That’s a lot of Blackberry typing for him to remember.
Yes, friendly and urgent work. But maybe sometimes you need to give your audience a more little credit.
I recently wrote about matching fundraising campaigns where one donor agrees to match the contributions of a set of additional donors, up to a certain amount. A twist on this is a kind of contest with a big payoff for the organization at the end.
The Ploughshares Fund has launched a similar contest with a twist. For the Yahoo!/Network for Good contest the winner was the one who raised the most money using a charity badge (a kind of simple widget) distributed on sites across the net.
The Ploughshares Fund has launched something called the Peace Primary. It is a kind of online popularity contest/election. But you can’t just vote. You have to pay $1 per vote (minimum 10) and those dollars go to the organization. So its a combination contest/fundraiser. Nice!
You can vote for as many organizations as you like. In fact, voting for multiple groups is strongly encouraged.
How many times can I vote?
Each vote costs $1. For each group you select, there is a 10-vote minimum and a 1,000 vote maximum.
Where does the money go?
Every dollar you contribute with each vote goes directly to the group you are voting for. All donations are completely tax-deductible.
I don’t know if I like the idea of money for votes.
Neither do we in actual elections, but in the Peace Primary nobody loses — every dollar raised goes directly to the the participating groups to support their efforts to raise the profile of peace issues in the coming months. There are also strict spending limits in the Peace Primary — no more than $1,000 per voter per group — to maximize every group’s chances of winning. And, unlike real-world elections, voters are allowed and even encouraged to vote for as many groups as they want.
When can I vote?
You can vote any time between September 1 and October 31, 2007.
How will the winner be chosen?
The group that receives the most votes will receive a one-time grant of $100,000 from the Ploughshares Fund, a public grantmaking foundation that supports the smartest people with the best ideas for preventing the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and identifying new ways to prevent armed conflict.
How were the participating groups chosen?
The Ploughshares Fund submitted a list of organizations to an all-star panel of leaders (see above) from across the peace and security community, and that panel voted for the 12 finalists. The panel was chaired by actor Martin Sheen and also included writer, commentator and religious scholar Reza Aslan, a member of Ploughshares Fund’s Board of Directors; the Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell of the Chautauqua Institute; Bonnie Jenkins, program officer at the Ford Foundation; former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey (R-CA); author Jonathan Schell; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor-in-chief of The Nation, and Ploughshares Fund Executive Director Naila Bolus.
What criteria were used to nominate the groups?
We looked for organizations that represent a wide range of approaches to peace and human security; that have a commitment to action and policy advocacy; that have a base of grassroots support and a national or broad regional constituency; that have the capacity for online communication and outreach to constituents; and that have a record of making an impact.
by Michael Hoffman Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Why should I donate? Yes, you do good work. Yes, I care about these issues. OK, you got me. I will donate. But not now. When I get around to it. (Which might not actually happen any time soon.)
I think this is a common subconscious set of thoughts from donors. I will get to it. I made that pledge, but I didn’t return the envelope. Not because I didn’t intend to do it, but because it’s not URGENT. Creating urgency is an important part of fundraising. OK, I get you do good work. But why is it important that I donate now. Right now. Why not tomorrow? Why not next month?
One way to solve the urgency issue is to use a matching program. A typical match program will get a high-net-worth donor to conditionally pledge some money, say, $75,000. They will pay the pledge if you can get another $75,000 to match it. Often this is a nice way to up a gift from a major donor as well as getting your base excited. I was thinking about this recently because I saw two case studies for running matching gift programs online.
The first is from the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). They sent out an email about a week ago to their list saying that a family foundation has agreed to provide $75,000 if the amount could be matched. In about two days the $75,000 came in online. Here’s the amazing thing… a lot more money came in phone calls! “I just got this email about the matching and I want to donate.” So they were over their goal. (Don’t forget, if you get calls or letters that reference an online campaign, the online campaign needs to be credited for those gifts in your database so you can accurately measure the impact of the campaign.)
Within a couple days, the whole experience got someone else excited about the matching possibilities and I got this email from Ruth Messinger, the head of AJWS:
Dear Michael,
During these Days of Awe I am particularly grateful for your ongoing commitment to AJWS.
Last week I shared the news that, in the spirit of the High Holy Days, a family foundation agreed to match your contributions up to $75,000.
I am so pleased that, thanks to an outpouring of support, we have met the match.
However, the generosity of our supporters did not stop there. After hearing of the success of the first match, an anonymous donor came forward and offered an additional $100,000 in match funds!
With the ongoing help of the AJWS community, we are confronting some of the world’s most difficult challenges. We support the world’s most vulnerable people - where the need is greatest - in communities that have not been reached and not been served by others.
So please, don’t miss this special opportunity to contribute today - your donation will go twice as far and will help AJWS raise up to $350,000 for our critical work around the world!
Thank you for your commitment to global social justice and support of AJWS. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
Warm regards,
Ruth Messinger
President, American Jewish World Service
The second case study is from the Obama campaign. What’s interesting about their approach is the idea of matching real people to each other to create a kind of virtuous circle of leveraged gifts. The Obama people are combining the urgency of the match with the idea of creating community, which has been a lot of what their campaign is about. And they also throw in here a little “prove to me that you’re a man” kind of stuff for added punch (which is the part I don’t really like because I think it dilutes the power of the community sell.) Have a look:
Dear Michael,
Somebody out there believes that you’re ready to own a piece of this campaign.
A fellow supporter has promised that if you make a donation right now, they will match what you give.
So take the next step.
Prove to them that they were right to put their faith in you. Make a donation now and double your impact:
https://donate.barackobama.com/match
This isn’t an anonymous donor program backed by big checks from Washington lobbyists or corporate fat cats. This is a one-to-one, supporter-to-supporter effort.
If you make a donation, you’ll be matched up with a real person — another supporter who has put their faith in you. And you’ll be able to read a note from them and send a response.
Here’s how it works:
You choose the amount you’re willing to give — it will be doubled by someone willing to match that amount
You’ll see the name and town of the fellow Obama supporter who agreed to double your donation
You’ll be able to write a note to the person who matched you and let them know why you decided to own a piece of this campaign
https://donate.barackobama.com/match
Our movement is funded by actual people — individuals who are moved to give whatever they can afford, whether it’s five dollars or five hundred dollars.
Most campaigns do not realize the value of contributions from ordinary people — they are focused on the money that comes from Washington lobbyists and special interest groups.
But we reject the notion that lobbyists and PACs represent “real people,” and we’ve refused their money since this campaign began.
So it’s up to you.
Make a donation and show your support. Double your impact by giving today and being a part of our supporter match campaign:
https://donate.barackobama.com/match
According to the Campaign Finance Institute, we have raised more money in small dollar contributions than any major campaign in history.
If we keep building our movement this way, we have the potential to fundamentally reshape the political process.
We can end the days of lobbyists and political action committees paying for access and influence.
That’s why we’re so focused on bringing new donors into the campaign. For the next ten days you will write the history of this presidential election through your actions.
You have the opportunity to build the biggest grassroots campaign politics has ever seen.
Make a donation, connect with another supporter, and double your impact now:
https://donate.barackobama.com/match
Thanks for your support,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
Matching programs can work. So if you haven’t tried it, you should. One rule of creating urgency is that you shouldn’t abuse it. You can’t tell people in every communication you have with them all the time that the sky is falling (even if it is!). If you say, “We need you to act today!” and you say it again next week, they will get burned out. They will begin to feel that they can never solve your problems, that you just take and take and no matter how much they give you are still in this crazy urgent situation. And if they feel that way, then your appeals start to make them feel guilty, and guilt is not a tricky tactic in fundraising. Most of the time people will avoid guilt-inducing situations.
If you have your own matching gift story, leave it in a comment here to share it with your nonprofit colleagues.
When we made this recent piece for NARAL: Pro-Choice America, we needed debate footage that we could mash-up and play with. Should we have to pay a private corporation to re-use the footage of our national candidates speaking? If you were to want to grab video of President Bush speaking in order to criticize it, you would have to pay the station that ran the original story. Does that make sense?
The issue of what is Fair Use and how this specifically relates to our political life is an important one. Pressure from the right places can make a difference in the push for more openness. Responding to a complaint from the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the Federal Trade Commission told NBC that their copyright notices were deceiving the public about the public’s right to use materials under the Fair Use doctrine.
The move drew immediate praise from CCIA President and CEO Ed Black, who said NBC’s decision “further opens the doors of the political process.
“The Internet, the great equalizer of our time, empowers people from every walk of life to make better decisions with more information,” he said in a statement. “Indeed, the political process depends on this very principle.”
Black pointed out that fair use guidelines allow others to use portions of the debates for commentary and review, but do not require the footage to be release entirely without restrictions, as the networks have agreed to do.
“Nevertheless, because the public’s fair use rights have limits, ABC and NBC are to be praised for providing the public with unrestricted use of this content, thereby ensuring that the democratic discourse will not be impeded,” he said.
On Friday I went to a social networking panel at Yearly Kos and this is the last thing I have to write up from the conference. The title of the session was “Politics 2.0 - How social networks and new media are changing politics.” On the panel we had Amy Rubin, Stephanie Taylor, Beka Economopoulos and Ruby Sinreich. I didn’t stay for the entire thing, but what I caught was good.
First up was Ruby Sinreich. Her subject was, what makes for effective social networks. Here are some notes:
1. Strong Social Ties
a. personal relationships
b. trust
c. awareness - you have to know the network exists
2. Common Story - we have to be on the same page (eg. Sorry Everybody)
3. Communication grid so people can talk to each other
eg. drinkingliberally.com which is online and offline
one-to-many. You have to have the ability to communicate.
4. Shared Resources
a. data information - eg. wikipedia
b. skills and expertise
c. money
d. space
5. Clarity of Purpose
a. do you feel like a member?
b. knowing what the network is for
After her talk she showed different types of network diagrams. According to Ruby, the mesh network is the best because it is not dependent on a single point — if one person leaves it stays together.
Amy Rubin, the Deputy Director of New Media from the John Edwards campaign then talked about their social network strategy as it related to promoting a webcast after the last debate.
My take-aways from her talk:
1. You can reach out to lots of online communities, but you need a single site that brings all the information together.
2. Meet people where they are, don’t make MySpace people come to Facebook or try to create groups that cross network platforms. Yes, it is more work, but you have to meet people where they live online.
3. Focus on influencers. Not everyone is equal, let the people who influence their friends move your message.
4. The list will grow naturally as you give people what they want where they want it. Don’t make them leave their comfort zone to do something you want them to do. List growth comes when people are interested.
5. Care2, working with them was great to seed the actions.
6. Created private leadership groups within each social network - give the people working the most something special.
The highlight of the session was Beka Economopoulos from Greenpeace. Yes, her name alone would make it a highlight.
She is an online organizer for Greenpeace. Her history is with off-line organizing and so her job is to see how we can leverage social networks and integrate web 2.0 platforms to leverage off-line results. In other words… can you use the web to get people to show up and do things in the real world.
She organizes days of action so people can participate to do bake sales or congressional visits. Greenpeace has 65,000 friends in MySpace. Getting friends is not a communications strategy — MySpace isn’t a web page it’s a network. She had a nice analogy for this. “A friend on a social network is like putting on a bumper sticker.” It’s a sign of affiliation but that’s it.
At Greenpeace, they have a team of interns who work to respond to people it pays off. Their email list is growing and they consider those friends to be an extension of their email list because they send their newsletters and alerts to them as well. So the 65,000 new eyeballs and ears are great, but they are paying close attention to how to convert those people to activists.
She then showed us an amazing case study of action against Kimberly Clark, the big paper company. Kimberly Clark makes Kleenex and they heard that Kleenex was going to be shooting a commercial in Times Square. The commercial was to have real people sit on a couch and tell the camera about their “Kleenex moment.” This makes for great TV because it is an authentic voice. Beka called this the “fetishization of the reality TV genre.” And it set them up for a fall.
Greenpeace inserted themselves into the the story. They are focused on what she called “narrative driven campaigning and culturally focused organizing.” Which is to say, paying attention to what the symbols in the culture are that are resonating and how you can insert yourself into the story and point those symbols in new a direction and with new meaning. So Beka and her merry band brought their own crew and hidden mics and inserted themselves into this commercial shoot. The goal was to educate people about the fact that Kleenex is made from virgin forests and uses no recycled content.
What’s terrific here is not only how well this worked, but how they used the product of it to create a story and training video. The idea with this video is to empower more people to take their own actions and to get people thinking that they too can become an activists. Have a look:
One thing you will notice is that it’s long for web video. She said that friends thought it was too long but it holds together to tell a story — more training video than PSA. All the people in the action are new people. The guy who did the sound bites had never done anything before, now they are all hooked. Beka then promoted this to blogs, focusing on online progressive news and environmental blogs, then promoted it to ad agency and brand people.
Her conclusion was that there is a flattening of politics with over-saturation of media and so organizations should focus their energy and resources when and where you have good content. Amen Sister!
She also said, to my great delight, that there is no such thing as virability. You have to work the communities to get critical mass. She said that on MySpace they are getting very high conversion rates and that people who were individually messaged on a bake sale had a 15% conversion rate to off-line participation and that their average is 10% conversation. That’s huge.
I went to a session on Friday at Yearly Kos about the impact of video through the 2008 election. I had meant to “live blog” the session, meaning, I was typing while sitting in it and could have published this, but live blogging doesn’t give you the chance to make sure things make sense for your readers and I was not breaking any news, so I waited until now to finish this.
The moderator of the panel was from the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank that is tracking changes in politics from the progressive perspective.
Marcy Wheeler a blogger with FireDogLake who has moved to video blogging.
John Amato from Crooks and Liars who we are told was way ahead of his time with web video. The Vlog Father.
At the start of the session he showed the famous Johnson daisy ad.
This was really revolutionary when it ran. It is very powerful. I wonder about the “we must love each other” part. Not sure what he meant by that really.
Another point mentioned at the start of the session was that we have come along way from that ad, where everyone who saw it saw it on TV. Google’s revenue is approaching the total ad revenue from all network television.
We then saw the famous Macaca video. At one point someone asked what the real impact is of all this online video. The answer - we know a US Senate seat was lost because of it. If you haven’t seen that video, I pasted it below. The context is that an Indian-American is basically being called racial names from George Allen, who actually thought he would become the President of the United States.
Macaca video.
The campaigns are getting into the act of using web video. At the session we saw screen shots from Obama’s web video announcement, for example.
We are also seeing the parody. The best known one is probably Obama Girl.
Basically, there is a wave of video innovation going on now and it is changing politics.
There are categories of videos here. Viral Hollywood. Campaign video blogs. Event clips.
Not as much Flash animation these days. Will there be more? [I don’t think so.]
We also have TV clips that go viral.
And now we are starting to see web features — 5 to 10 minutes.
YouTube CNN Debates, for all the criticism will mark the coming of age of new media.
So here we are today. Lets go to the panel to talk about what’s next for web video.
John Amato on the phone:
“The power of video is truly amazing. With Crooks and Liars I was just getting into the blog world and when I actually saw Bill O’Reilly using right wing propaganda to frame every issue I realized the power of video through television was unique and I needed to get it online. Reading transcripts wasn’t enough. If you see them, see the spin, that would go viral and people needed to see this… ”
The most important things we will see with web video will come from individuals. People will watch the Obama Girl. It will be people at home with their video camera and an idea who can now take action on their ideas. The real power comes from us.
Julie Bergman Sender
Campaign for America’s Future wanted to kick off month long campaign around issue of obstructionist Republican Congress. She then showed us a video she said they did in one day. Staring Jason Alexander. Here it is:
[Love to hear what you think of it. Thought it had some good lines, but seemed too insider to me to have an impact on the masses.]
She also said… and these might not be exact quotes…
“In 2004 when I approached America Coming Together to do the Will Ferrell thing they looked at me like I was a Martian. It had three very clear policy points in it. The key is finding a popular culture conversation to tease out policy points.”
“I think we are in a transformational moment. As Wesley Clark said this morning, who are we? And how are we going to reinvent ourselves and return to the image of ourselves as Americans that we are not living up to.”
“[Speaking of the folks working on new media and web] there are a bunch of new thoroughbreds approaching the gate the if the old guard [of consultants] doesn’t get out of the way they will be trampled. There is a place for straightforward political messaging, biographical narrative treatments, etc. but there is also the person like Wesley Clark who talks about war… he is former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and he is on our side. It’s about authenticity.
There is still a stranglehold from old guard. We have to throw them over. This new crew, the bloggers, the individuals, the spirit of Yearly Kos that is everywhere… I think this is the new way to look at this paradigm, it is not a vertical command center of messaging, it is horizontal and people can take leadership and then blend it all together and the ones that know this will be the ones that succeed.”
Marcy Wheeler
FireDoglake… they covered the Libby Trial and they matched and surpassed the the old media in that. “I wrote these long posts that had readership of 2,000 people or maybe 10,000 people is max readership. Too long, too detailed and too inside baseball to change the narrative or really take on AP or Washington Post. Then I would write shorter, punchier posts for outlets with higher traffic.”
The live blog from the Libby trial was getting up to 200,000 people a day. There is no way we are going to beat the speakers on Fox… so we thought we need video. After 8 hours of live blogging did 5-10 minutes of video. A lot of people got to us for the first time through video.
People who couldn’t read the live stuff — but they would start with the video then scan the live blog. It gave me an appreciation for telling the story quickly.”
“If I would do this again there should be a video component all along.”
Dan Mannat
Shows this video…
What’s going to happen in the next year? His predictions:
1. VideoRoots — tracking, archival work, the folks doing Crooks and Liars on a local level. Basically the netroots phenomenon that we see so influential moves to video.
2. Self funding videos… contribute money so we can get this on the air. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was substantially on the web before it went to TV.
3. The Convention — how will they incorporate video? With inspiration of YouTube debate it will be interesting to see what happens with the convention.
4. Video Ad Watch - deconstructing attack ads with video. As soon as an ad goes up you will see video responses. Matter of hours before there will be video responses.
5. No candidate has done what Al Gore showed us.. the policy video. Integration of multimedia to explain policy — make it substantive - -we will see that in the next year.
6. Smear videos — honeymoon during primary, but for general gloves will be off.
Questions he has:
Will there be a YouTube general election debate? Will Commission on Presidential Debates incorporate it?
November Surprise videos.. last time we had Bin Laden…
In 2004 some effort to combat voter fraud with video. In 2008 we will see real time reporting of how long lines are on every precinct in the country. You can auto-post cell phone video to YouTube today.
The session ended with everyone agreeing that video is having and will continue to have a big impact and that the organizations that are able to teach video literacy will be the ones able to have a big impact. (Andrew Rasiej, who was in the audience called it “videacy” or something like that.)
I am here at the Yearly Kos Convention which is being held in Chicago, home of See3 Communications. For the uninitiated, Yearly Kos is a gathering of what’s called the Netroots - liberal/left bloggers who have changed the face of American politics. Kos comes from the website DailyKos, which is the top rated left/liberal blog and one of the most trafficked blogs online. Last year, the bloggers and community around the website DailyKos decided to meet in person. And because all the bloggers were coming, so came the politicians and the organizations wanting to get this community writing about these issues.
Right now I am in a session called Video for Change. Of course this is what we do here at See3. The people on the panel are all talking about hour-long or feature length documentaries. Interesting, but honestly not something that is really in the grasp of most organizations or individuals. Two of the panelists are from Robert Greenwald’s shop, Brave New Films. They do hard-hitting documentaries designed to make change - against Fox News or Wal-Mart.
I spoke at a conference with Robert Greenwald — the Make Your Documentary Matter conference from American University’s Center for Social Media. And one thing he said was that he does not believe you can make a film to be great — as in Oscar great — and make a film designed to make change. According to Greenwald, these things require different sets of choices that are not compatible.
In the session right now, Adam Chapnick from DocWorkers.com is speaking about talking to the organizations that are interested in the issue before you make the film — rather than simply making the film you want to make and then seeking an organization that can help you distribute it. In contrast, our focus at See3 is on empowering the organizations to make the films that advance their mission themselves.
Jim Gilliam is speaking now about the Wal-Mart film they did. He is saying that the research was a mix of what they got themselves and what the organizations — such as the unions — had done over time. They are talking about how the film was distributed in more than 7,000 screenings - school groups, unions, home screenings, church groups, etc.
Tracy Fleischman from Brave New Theaters is talking now about online marketing of the films. First, set up a website. She is saying that the site should be as much of a resource as possible, so people interested in the issue can use the site for research. Made short ads, had people vote on the title of the film, had people voting on different covers for the film — lots of ways to get people involved.
Adam is saying that you need to have people feel ownership — send us your videos or photos, vote on something, the more time people sign something or click the more likely they are to go the next step. He is also saying what we know from all internet marketing — create landing pages that are specific for specific types of groups and audiences.
Tracy now talking about how Brave New Films is focusing on short-form video and not the feature length pieces as they did in the past. For example, they have a site called FoxAttacks.com which is using short pieces to advocate for specific issues — for example trying to get the Nevada Democratic Party to not have a debate on Fox News.
