We are in the middle of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards. These are annual awards sponsored by See3 and NTEN to showcase the video work of nonprofits in the US and around the world. The winner will get an expense paid trip to the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco next year.

I am just in awe of the work people are doing out there. Not every video is great, but the work is so important and often so moving. Some of the videos are thoughtful and emotional. And some are funny. You can see for yourself at the home page of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards and click on the Watch button to see the videos.

Here’s a funny entry from Greenpeace International.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

2nd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards

Chicago, IL & Seattle, WA January 11, 2008

See3 Communications and NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network announce the co-sponsorship of the 2nd Annual DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards. Nonprofit organizations are encouraged to submit their videos to the contest, hosted on DoGooderTV, the video sharing platform for nonprofits. The grand prize winner will be announced at NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in New Orleans on March 21. The winner will be awarded an all-expense paid trip to the 2009 NTC to be held in San Francisco.

The theme of this year’s contest is From the Ground Up: Using Technology to Engage Constituents and Make the World a Better Place. The goal of the contest is to highlight the work of nonprofit organizations and to spread the word about the creative ways they employ media to bring about social change. Last year’s winner, Avaaz “Stop the Clash of Civilizations” received a standing ovation when played at the conference. This video has been viewed over 1.5 million times on YouTube.

Nonprofit organizations and their constituents are invited to submit videos used in support of a 2007 campaign. Videos can be from a wide variety of issue and interest areas including (but not limited to) activism, environment, education, disability, economic development, human services, international development, health, and the arts.

Entries will be accepted until February 15, 2008 at which time finalists will be determined. The finalists will be shown on www.DoGooder.tv beginning March 1, 2008; individuals will be able to vote on their favorite entry through March 20, 2008. For complete contest rules and to submit or view videos, please visit the video contest home.

See3 Communications creates compelling visual media and internet marketing initiatives that enable nonprofits to maximize exposure, deepen connections and produce results. Our background in video production, web development and nonprofit marketing and fundraising are combined to create campaigns with emotional appeal that compel target audiences to action. For additional information about See3 Communications, visit www.see3.net

NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network is the membership organization of nonprofit technology professionals. NTEN facilitates the exchange of knowledge and information within the nonprofit community. We connect our members to each other, provide professional development opportunities, educate our constituency on issues of technology use in nonprofits, and spearhead groundbreaking research, advocacy, and education on technology issues affecting our entire community. For additional information about NTEN, visit www.nten.org

Contact Information
Mary Dombrowski
Director of Operations
See3 Communications
(773) 784-7333
mary[at]see3[dot]net
www.see3.net
www.dogooder.tv

Holly Ross
Executive Director
NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Network
(415) 397-9000
holly[at]nten[dot]org
www.nten.org

Our favorite conference of the year is the NTC – the annual conference of NTEN - the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. This is the conference were more than one thousand nonprofit professionals gather to share and learn about how technology can advance the mission of nonprofit organizations.

I will be leading a session about online video — more to come on that — and we are once again a sponsor of the DoGooderTV Nonprofit Video Awards, sponsored by See3 and NTEN — more to come on that also.

I am very excited that David Pogue, my favorite New York Times technology columnist, is the keynote speaker. For those of you who read this blog you know that I am a big fan of David Pogue. You can see previous posts from me on his work here and here.

So, register for the NTC today and meet us March 19-21 in New Orleans!

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.”

DoGooderTV has become the platform for nonprofits to host video contests. Hosting video contests on DoGooderTV gives you all of the functionality of uploading, managing users and videos, sign-ups, registration and voting. We even provide you with a contest rules template.

There are two live contests right now on the DoGooderTV platform. You will notice in the second one that it doesn’t look like it’s on DoGooderTV, another way we can provide the platform.

Click here to see the Fresh Focus Sex Ed Video Contest

Click here to see the Love Is Respect Video Contest

This was in today’s mail:

Your Incremental Charge: $0.28

From a review of its billing records, T-Mobile has determined the amount of your Incremental Charge. That amount is shown above…

If you are a former T-Mobile subscriber, the amount of your Incremental Charge will be donated to City Year, a national youth outreach non-profit organization. However, if you want to receive a payment in the amount of your Incremental Charge instead of having that amount donated to City Year, you may notify the Settlement Administrator of your preference by visiting www.WongSettlement.com or calling (800) 282-5966, in which case you will receive a check in the amount of your Incremental Charge.

I am not making this up. Good for City Year. I hope they have a lot of former T-Mobile customers with lots Incremental Charges, whatever they are!

City Year just joined us at DoGooderTV:

It seems like everyone these days is talking about how nonprofits need to use more video, especially online. To all of these people, I say “Welcome!” We founded See3 and DoGooderTV to be THE video people for nonprofits and so it is very nice indeed to see our colleagues starting to beat the same drum.

Our friend Alia McKee from Sea Change Strategies wrote a blog post about nonprofits using video and gave some great examples. We worked with Alia when she was at Donordigital on videos with Amnesty International.

The latest nonprofit consultant/professional talking about video was Tom Belford from The Agitator blog.

“As I’ve written before, I think it is crucial for nonprofits to master this medium for conducting your fundraising, advocacy and educational efforts,” Tom writes.

He then shows some stats from comScore:

* Over 133 million Americans watched online video in July — or 74% of US internet users.
* They watched more than 9 billion videos, 27% of them on Google sites (mostly YouTube).
* More than one-in-three (37%) US internet users viewed video on YouTube.
* Online viewers watched an average of more than 3 hours of online video during the month, with an average video duration of 2.7 minutes.
* The average viewer consumed 68 videos, or more than two per day.

So while we don’t yet have all the metrics we need to show that video will actually improve/increase fundraising online, we know that this is the content people are gravitating towards. You don’t have to have more metrics to understand that in order to capture and keep the attention of you target audience that you have to have good, compelling visual stories. And now we know, online video is the best way to do that.