INTO FOCUS A BENCHMARK GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE NONPROFIT VIDEO

If nonprofits aren’t learning about video and thinking about it and integrating it and using it, they’re really missing out on one of the most powerful tools we have to move people to action. It’s a means through which people increasingly expect to experience so many things they do online -- and so good causes should be part of that.

Katya Andersen Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer

Network for Good

More than half of all Internet content is video.

Every month 4 billion hours of video are viewed on YouTube.

Every year more than 350 million videos are shared on Twitter.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that video is an immensely powerful form of communication. Today, more than ever, actions on a screen really do speak louder than words on a page. A well-presented video message has the capacity to reach beyond the physical senses to engage our emotions, ignite us to take action, and inspire us to share.

In this “new world order,” attention is the currency, and content, especially video, remains king.

The video train has left the station.

Is your nonprofit on board or are you running to catch up?

INTRODUCTION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Is your organization using video to spread your message, raise awareness for a cause, promote an action, or solicit donations? If so, how are you doing it and is it working for you? If you are not using video, what is holding you back? What would help you move forward? How can nonprofits as a sector do better?

To answer these questions, See3 Communications, YouTube, and Edelman have collaborated to conduct a survey that reveals the first behind-the scenes insights into the use and impact of nonprofit video.

Respondents included senior management and communications and development professionals, and came from organizations large and small – representing a rich diversity of missions.

We heard from nonprofits that integrate video into a multitude of campaigns and media channels – and from many who are just planning to buy their first camera. We got the inside track on what nonprofits are doing with video, what they’re not doing – and why.

While nearly all nonprofits recognize the significance of the “video revolution,” this survey reveals that few feel prepared to use this powerful communications tool to its full potential.

The key barriers to additional video production: budget limitations, lack of staff resources, and insufficient ability to measure or prove impact. A more fundamental challenge for organizations, however, is building the internal capacities and culture needed to participate fully in this new media world, where video is becoming as indispensable as a website or brand identity.

That’s what makes this benchmark guide so timely. Not only does it paint a rich, engaging portrait of the state-of-the-art in nonprofit video, but it also provides tips, tools, and strategies from media and networking experts, and anecdotes from organizations that are leading the way in the successful use of video for fundraising, advocacy, and communications.

We hope that it will inform, inspire and empower you to establish and maintain a robust presence in the dramatically expanding landscape of video communications.

Video [is] probably the most important way to evoke emotions in the people you’re trying to reach – and that emotion is going to lead to not just initial attention, but then lasting memory of your cause, engagement in your cause, and willingness to take action.

Liz Banse Vice President, Resource Media

Here is what we learned: Nonprofits overwhelmingly agree that video is crucial to their communications, but many feel they do not know how to use it effectively or measure its impact – yet.

Nonprofits that value video most are more likely to:

ZOOMING IN… Who is watching video online? Everyone. Everywhere. All the time.

Who thinks it’s important? Just about everyone loves video. It’s more entertaining, powerful, and persuasive than anything we have in our communications toolkit. And its use is growing exponentially. So it came as no surprise that the great majority of respondents (80%) said that video is important to their organization today, and 91% foresee that its role will increase over the next three years. Nearly everyone (92%) values the investment they have made in video production, and 87% want to produce more videos.

Hire outside vendors

Make shortervideos

Measure performance with a wide

array of tools

Focus on reaching new

audiences

Distribute to more

social media channels

Be a member of YouTube’s

nonprofit program

Nearly everyone – from senior management on down – values video and expresses a clear intention to produce more. This confidence in the medium, however, is not reflected in current and projected spending or in allotment of staff resources. Annual video expenditures for 66% of the organizations surveyed were $10,000 or less. Only 6% anticipate a significant increase in the video budget, 24% expect a slight increase, and the rest think allocation of funds will remain the same or decrease.

Furthermore, 62% of the organizations surveyed designate very little or no staff time for video production and distribution.

BARRIERSWHAT is stopping you?

Bu

dg

et

Staf

f R

eso

urc

es

Silo

s

Pro

of

of

RO

I

79% 52% 39% 22%

We all love video, so why aren’t we investing in it?

The biggest barrier by far is budget restrictions. The majority of nonprofits are small and have limited funds, most of which are earmarked for essential operating expenses and programs. If you are venturing into the video arena for the first time, it looks like a daunting financial investment. It can be. However, the tools are more affordable than ever these days, and highly effective videos can be produced for surprisingly little money.

For those who are reluctant to take the leap into video, See3 CEO Michael Hoffman suggests a look at recent history: “If you went to a nonprofit in 1995 and said they needed a website, they would probably have seen the writing on the wall and said, ‘Yes, we will get a website.’ If you told them that within ten years they would have a whole web department, they would say you were crazy. They would ask, ‘Where could we possibly get the money to do that?’ Nevertheless, the culture started to shift – even before organizations had the ability to assign money and staff. We are in the same place now with video. People know they need it, or they are about to discover they need it, and nearly all of them intend to use it more. But many nonprofits are still figuring out how to integrate it into their work and allocate funds for it in their budgets.”

Budget

VIDEO ON A SHOESTRING

We brought in first one DSLR, some fairly economical but high-grade microphones, a portable sound recorder, and a small but effec-tive lighting kit. Our investments in production equipment were prob-ably under 5,000 dollars total. It’s just getting more and more pos-sible for people to use the instru-ments that they have in their hands most of the time, and the need for very cumbersome and expensive professional apparatus is just disap-pearing. So, whoever has the will and a little bit of training, or even just a desire to learn, suddenly has the power to create this stuff. Then all you need really is the objectives and the creativity – and some time, of course.

Hugh Siegel Senior Director of Strategic Communications

Children’s Health Fund

The second biggest obstacle identified was staff resourcing, i.e., available personnel and/or time. If you work at a nonprofit, you know all too well that most people already wear more than one hat. So how can you spare precious hours of an already busy staff member to learn video skills and visual storytelling or to manage the project if you are using outside vendors?

You can start by accepting the fact that video is here to stay – and it’s only becoming more prevalent and essential for business communications. If you want to reach people with your message in this hyper-connected world, you must incorporate video into your marketing and fundraising plans – and assign the necessary personnel to take responsibility for producing and/or overseeing it.

It’s a great opportunity to build internal capacity. Consider video and storytelling skills as you hire new staff in all departments – digital, fundraising, communications – and even operations. Meanwhile, here are some quick tips for getting started:

Staff Resources

Find a person on your staff who already has some video experience – or train someone who has the interest. There’s probably already a staffer who would love to create videos as part of her job – and she might even have her own camera and software. If someone wants to learn, provide support for an online class or local workshop.

Ask someone who works in the field to film or photograph your on-the-ground programs. If your programs are far from your office, take advantage of the skills and tools of folks on site. They are living the story as it happens – so ask them to help you share it. This also adds impact by bringing your stakeholders into your work.

Hire an outside contractor or company to work with you on a part-time or per-project basis. Some companies will train your staff while working on a project. It’s a great way to have professionals help you establish your look, tone, and messaging style for future productions

Who is in charge of nonprofit videos?

The communications department is

primarily responsible for video (58%),

followed by digital/social media (32%),

fundraising (20%) and volunteers (19%).

Outside vendors are contracted for

about half of the total videos, although

the trend is moving toward more

in-house production.

58%Communications

Department

32%Digital/Social

media

20%Fundraising

19%Volunteers

There’s a wide range of possibilities here. I have traveled with those little flip cameras and interviewed and videotaped farmers and forest community members. And then I share that either via email with our donors or on our website.

We have a certification auditor, who goes all over the world and works on farm auditing and he is actually a fabulous photogra-pher. He has taken photographs and great videos and brought them back. We also have the fortune of groups that were going to Kenya anyways to do a video for another NGO and offered to do a video on our farms about the work of the Rainforest Alliance. And then we’ve hired companies to make videos for us.

Ana Paula Tavares Executive Vice President

Rainforest Alliance

SilosIn many organizations – both large and small – each department has its own budget and tasks. The unfortunate consequence is that joint endeavors around video are often not considered – even though the same footage can often be re-purposed effectively for different messages and different audiences — resulting in wins for all departments.

At The Nature Conservancy, for example, departments work together to maximize efficiency – and return on investment. Ethan Kearns, TNC’s Manager of Film & Video, Global Content, is going into the field to produce videos for the online annual report. Jennifer Watral, Associate Director of Online Fundraising for the Global Digital Group, works in close coordination to piggyback on Ethan’s shoot in order to create a direct response fundraising video. That means shared expenses for international travel and production – and shared resources that can be shaped for different audiences and different goals. Smart all around.

Keep this in mind if you are hesitant to think outside your department: Combining resources (money and staff) can open up possibilities and perspectives that pay off with quality productions for everyone!

Everyone works very diligently in their silos and they are experts in their areas, but we have to collaborate. So we have another group that cuts across all those groups and meets on a weekly basis and talks about important messaging and areas of interest that we need to focus on together. And so we share resources, we talk about what’s upcoming, and we collaborate in that way. And we collaborate organically as well, outside, but to have something that’s more rhythmic and part of a plan and part of our objectives helps us really think about everything and how it can be used.

From my perspective, putting a great, fabulous video together is worthless if you don’t have the promotion and distribution behind it, and we need the digital team and we need our other resources and expertise to help in those areas.

Ethan Kearns Manager of Film & Video, Global Content

The Nature Conservancy

Ability to Prove Impact or Return on Investment

It’s hard for many organizations to justify the investment in video without being able to show solid evidence of a return on investment. Some things are easier to measure than others, but either way, it’s difficult to calculate how video, or any one component in your overall communications, directly impacts a program or a donor.

Unlike email subject lines or donations landing pages, it is not easy to test video. And since videos are so different from each other, it is not clear that the results of testing one video could be extrapolated to others. Our challenge as nonprofits is to measure what we can and to recognize that the large and lasting impacts aren’t reducible to a single metric, such as views. We need to balance the clear and direct measurements we can make with the understanding that data can be multi-faceted and change doesn’t happen all at once.

Notwithstanding these complexities, if nonprofits don’t have some way to quantify the impact and/or ROI of a video, it is more challenging for video advocates or “would-be advocates” within an organization to defend the expenditure of time and money required to produce it. This is particularly true of fundraisers, who often have to validate every investment with a specific anticipated outcome directly tied to donations.

The survey reveals that organizations are counting what is easy to count: views, likes, and clickthroughs. These numbers only have real meaning and value if you understand their connection to the underlying organizational goals that the video was meant to achieve. If your goal is email sign-ups, how do views translate into constituent engagement?

The vast majority of nonprofit videos are made without a clearly trackable goal or a protocol for measurement – making it virtually impossible to determine their impact or effectiveness. This begins to explain why there is such a huge gap between the perceived importance of video and the willingness to invest in it.

Before we start filling in this gap, let’s back up and focus on your goal. If your video doesn’t have a purpose – a raison d’être – from the beginning, then “success,” however you might define it, is difficult to track and almost impossible to measure.

When it comes to analyzing the impact of their videos, 76% of the nonprofits either don’t know how it’s measured or they only track it anecdotally.

Importance of video in overall communications

The most important thing you can do to improve your video’s ROI is to define a clear, attainable goal and measure how and if you reach that goal.

Here is what the nonprofits in our survey want to achieve with their videos …

GOAL 1: MARKETING AND RAISING AWARENESS 87%

“Follow the Frog” is the biggest effort of ours that went viral. The intention of the video was to get people to look for more sustainable products when they shop. With it we were able to reach out to a lot of people. We don’t know yet the kind of return we are going to have from that, but just the fact that now a million people out there know who we are and have an idea of what we do – that can potentially drive them to support us one day.

Ana Paula Tavares Executive Vice President

Rainforest Alliance

Takeaway: Used efficiently and effectively, video can be an incredibly powerful tool in getting you from awareness to action.

The nonprofit version of the marketing funnel is essentially the same, but it is usually called a ladder of engagement or a pyramid. Every nonprofit needs to move people in stages from awareness to action. … The ladder of engagement can be used as a tool to help analyze, strategize and measure every campaign the organization does.

This goal has no concrete quantifiable outcome and it’s the most difficult objective to evaluate – but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Raising awareness is the first step in the process of building your base of supporters.

In their book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World, Beth Kanter and Katie Delahay Paine liken the stages of connecting with your constituency to the AID A marketing funnel in the for-profit world:

Action When someone buys something from you

Awareness When someone becomes aware

of your product or service

Intention When someone becomes interested

in learning more about your product or service

Desire When someone wants

to buy from you

Beth Kanter and Katie Delahay Measuring the Networked Nonprofit:

Using Data to Change the World

GOAL 2: FUNDRAISING 46%

Use video to cultivate your existing donor relationships.

Show donors their support makes a difference.

People support causes when they believe their individual contribution matters. Try centering a story on the donor and what her support has done to help change the world.

Charity : water was unrivalled in our survey as the organization most admired for effective use of video, with over six times more mentions than the runner-up, ASPCA. Their fundraising efforts are masterful examples of building relationships with supporters. They recognize that supporter relationships are vital to the sustainability of any organization and need to be nurtured as part of the overall communications strategy. Someone who has offered support or engaged in a call to action is more likely to do it again – and definitely more likely than someone new. Video can play a valuable role in this process.

Turn strangers into friends. Turn friends into donors. And then... do the most important job: Turn your donors into fundraisers.

Seth Grodin Flipping the Funnel

Takeaway: Not every video needs to solicit funds directly. It’s fine for your video goal to be showing existing donors that their investment in a program was money well spent.

TIPS & TRICKS

It’s AboutPeople

People donate money because they feel an emotional connection to a cause. And there’s really no better way that I know to forge an emotional connection than to put someone smack dab in the middle of why your organization matters through video. And really great video, just like really great photography, transports us in a way that words really can’t. And that can touch the emotional centers of our brain that we know spark altruism and empathy and in turn results in giving.

Katya Andersen Chief Operating Officer

and Chief Strategy Officer Network for Good

Let your donors know you appreciate them.

Takeaway: A well-executed thank you video is a simple and effective way to tell your supporters you are grateful for their support. And often – to get more donations.

TIPS & TRICKS

Make itAuthentic

GOAL 3: MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND RELATIONS 32%

The primary goal of this video was to get more of the current mailing list to follow Global Fund for Women on social media. This was an experimental sharing-based campaign, first effort of its kind, with a modest target of 1,000 shares. It incorpo-rated a social media push the night of the 25th anniversary gala, which encour-aged folks to join the event on Twitter and Facebook if they couldn’t attend in person. Those who did sign in had a chance to see the video premier before it went public. The next day we followed up with email messaging and another social media drive. A final thank-you message included another sharing ask.

Takeaway: Meaningful content with accessible prompts for simple actions will both increase membership and intensify member appreciation for your cause.

Laura Shapiro Director of Online Communications

Global Fund for Women

Pull back the curtain on your work and show constituents what you are accomplishing.

GOAL 4: ADVOCACY 30%

Takeaway: An inspiring video engages people emotionally in your cause and converts that connection into action

Use video to show the critical need for the change you want and provide the tools that empower people to join you in making that that change happen.

Many animal advocates will tell you that they first became truly aware of issues of animals abuse after seeing a video... Video gives us a chance to encourage people to recognize and give weight to their natural empathy for animals—which is exactly what animal abusing industries don’t want people to do.

“The slightly edgy tone to our “This Is Who We Are” video invites anyone outraged by injustice toward animals to realize that they share in ALDF’s mission, and to encourage them to align with us in our work to stop abuse.

Lisa Franzetta Animal Legal Defense Fund

TIPS & TRICKS

Tell ThemWhat to Do!

Why are you making the video?

Now go make your

What are you tryingto say? Keep it to one message, one theme.

Who is your audience? Choose a primary target audience.

What do you want themto DO? You have their attention. Don’t waste it.

WANT TO MAKE A VIDEO that is popular and effective? Answer these questions first:

TIPS & TRICKS

Keep itSimple!

TIPS & TRICKS

Planning!Planning!Planning!

BETH KANTERon Goals and Measurement Speaker/Author/Master Trainer & Nonprofit Innovator in Networks & Social Media

Videos are not just about views. Social media is not just about engagement. Put another way, the world’s greatest love letter is useless if it doesn’t achieve the desired effect. In other words, if it doesn¹t get you a date, or dinner, or sex, or marriage — whatever your goal is, it really doesn’t matter how well written it is.

Think about this in terms of video: If your video doesn’t inspire people to convert to some action — higher up on your theory of change or ladder of engagement — then you need to understand why and change that.

It doesn¹t mean that engagement on social media is useless and not worth the time or that a video that gets few views sucks. It means that you need to engage or create a video with a purpose or articulated goal. But that¹s only half of it, as KD Paine and I write in our book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit. You have to measure conversions from social media or video — from views to engagement to whatever action or goal you want people to take.

When I facilitated a program at Packard Foundation, Bob Filbin, Dosomething.org’s data scientist, shared a valuable lesson he learned about measurement:

“How many views make a YouTube video a success? How about 1.5 million? That’s how many views a video our organization, DoSomething.org, posted in 2011 got. Then came the data report: only eight viewers had signed up to donate equipment, and zero actually donated [sports equipment]….

What happened? We were concerned with the wrong metric … As we learned, there is a difference between numbers and numbers that matter. This is what separates data from metrics.”

So, all this to say that you need to set a measurable goal, understand that there is a ladder of engagement to get to results, and measure conversion along the way.

Jeff Bladt and Bob FilbinHarvard Business Review Blog, March 13, 2013

DISTRIBUTION AND NETWORKING

It’s really, really difficult and challenging, but it’s not rocket science. It is in essence: build a network of shares, have really good authentic content that people actually want to watch and share, because people build their own social capital for sharing something that other people think is cool content, right? So, we have this network now of a couple hundred thousand people, who get social capital back from their communities by sharing the content that we provide them.

Survey respondents consider social media networks by far the most important and effective avenues of distribution. The top two, YouTube and Facebook, are used by almost all of the participants in the survey – but like any tool, they only reach their full potential if used well.

The old model of media distribution has changed almost beyond recognition. Gone are the days when three broadcast networks competed for everyone’s attention and time slots guaranteed that your advertisement would be viewed by millions, simply because the audience had little choice. The broadcast source was the hub of a wheel that reached out directly to audience members at the end of each spoke. Granted there were a lot of spokes, but each reached an individual and stopped there.

Michael O’Heany

Co-Director, Story of Stuff

Importance of video in overall communications

Do not knowNon-social

media channels

Social media

Today, people can choose from a multitude of channels – and while the source is still at the center, it’s one of many additional hubs. Social networks are more like a series of concentric circles, because everyone who gets your message is also a potential source for sharing it with his or her network. So, to get your message to the far perimeter of your circles, you need to start by sending it to the people with whom you have built a relationship – your core audience. When you give them content that’s accessible, engaging, emotional and current, they will be inspired to share it.

It’s also important to keep using non-social media — your website and emails — to keep the conversation going with your core constituents. They need to know what you are doing, because they are the ones who will act, donate, and share with others. This is the kind of deep engagement critical to building momentum and growing your community.

If you want to be successful with distribution and networking, make your videos as shareable as you can. Send an email to your community with a link to the video and post them on YouTube, Facebook and your website with links and tools for sharing that are easy to see and easy to use.

TIPS & TRICKS

Make YourVideo Findable

Social MediaAn overwhelming majority of survey respondents (92%) considers YouTube a critical place to post videos. But while almost everyone has a presence there, a closer look reveals that YouTube is not being fully exploited as a vehicle to help nonprofits accomplish specific goals with their videos – or even to track their performance. For one thing, while most organizations that took part in the survey (67%) know about the YouTube Nonprofit Program, only 42% are members and 18% don’t even know if they belong. That’s higher than YouTube’s own data, which reveals that only a little over 20,000 eligible nonprofits are members, out of the exponentially higher number that qualify, in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. What’s more, less than 1% of those who do belong to the program have enabled the donate button on their channel.

So take this as a nudge to those of you who are making and/or posting the videos: Set aside a bit of time to become familiar with the tools available through the YouTube Nonprofit Program. If you start using them, we are pretty confident that the quality and effectiveness of your videos (not to mention your number of views) will experience a welcome upsurge.

Social media channelsused to distribute video

81%

78%

55%

16%

10%

8%

5%

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Vimeo

Google+

Pinterest

Private social network

Facebook is right behind YouTube, with 91% of the survey respondents viewing it as an important place for posting their videos. While most people are pretty savvy about posting and sharing video, many are probably not taking advantage of Facebook as a vehicle for maximizing reach or helping you increase conversions on a call to action. It’s important to understand that Facebook is not a broadcast place. It’s a tool that encourages people in your community to bring your messages to their community.

So which makes more sense: sharing your video with those who have already demonstrated support, or forging into the vast territory of social media in the hopes of attracting new viewers who have shown no previous interest in your mission?

It is much more effective to get your video to 100 of your organization’s most passionate supporters, who will share, promote, and engage with your content, than to try attracting 1,000 new viewers who have shown no previous interest in your mission. These 100 are most likely to work for you, using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites to share your video with their friends. And their friends are more likely to view something that comes from someone they already know.

Takeaway: Sending your content to known supporters holds your key to success on social media.

TIP #1 On YouTube, production quality is not always as important as having a clear, authentic message and posting videos regularly.

Water.org (YouTube.com/water) posts some high quality, highly produced videos, but they also post simple videos. Weekly uploads, including a series “Stories from the Field” and short clips (under a minute), show the impact that clean water has on people’s lives.

Two causes that accomplish great video storytelling at low costs are Invisible People, posting unedited stories of homeless people across the U.S, and The Uncultured Project, shooting in Bangladesh with just a flip camera.

TIP #2 One of the best ways to gain new audience members on YouTube is to collaborate with other YouTube channels so their audiences see your videos.

The ONE Campaign wanted to reach people who care about food. They created a sweet potato campaign (read more here) and asked several YouTube chefs if they would create a recipe to raise issues around nutrition and ask people to sign a nutrition petition. ONE was pleased with the conversion rate — the proportion of people who watched and then clicked through to sign up. They got over 600 petition signers and new members. Check out Fire-Roasted Sweet Potatoes, by the BBQ Pit Boys, and Sweet Potato Fries and Dipping Sauce, by Betty’s Kitchen.

TIP #3 Often nonprofits have to make videos about difficult topics and it can be hard to find an appropriate tone. Even somber messages can benefit from innovative storytelling techniques.

Crimestoppers, a UK nonprofit, created a “choose your own story” narrative style using annotations and multiple videos. Interactivity helped viewers connect with the grim topic of human trafficking. In line with the seriousness of the issue, they kept the engagement starkly simple: At the end of the initial video viewers are given the choice, via annotations, to help or ignore a woman being kidnapped, with each selected option leading to a different narrative conclusion. To reach the widest possible audience, the channel also uploaded a version of the full storyline without annotations. The result? The videos in the interactive series had cumulative views that were 327% higher than the channel’s average upload.

YOUTUBE’S TIPS FOR SUCCESS

TIPS & TRICKS

Build YourSubscriber List

YOUTUBE NONPROFIT PROGRAMTell your organization’s story through videos on YouTube.

SIGN UP HERE.

Benefits of joiningDonate button Viewers can use your channel’s Donate button to contribute to your cause online right from your YouTube videos.

Call-to-action overlays Place a Call to Action on your videos, which viewers can click to visit your website, donate, or learn more.

Live streaming Stream video footage live onto your YouTube channel; great for events, conferences, and reporting.

Video annotations Use annotations on your videos to encourage users to subscribe to your channel or click to visit your website.

Community forum Connect with fellow nonprofits and get advice from pros on the free YouTube Nonprofits Forum.

Download the Playbook for Good To help you activate your cause, tell a compelling story, and launch an effective campaign on YouTube, we now have a resource for nonprofits. Learn how your nonprofit can use these benefits and make the most out of YouTube by downloading the Playbook for Good and joining the YouTube Nonprofit Google Group to receive our monthly newsletter.

A look at the YouTube Nonprofit Program*

20,348 active nonprofits in the Youtube nonprofit program

Nonprofits have received 6,450,608,282 views

588 have over 1 million views

1,940 nonprofits are using the Donate Button

72 nonprofits have live-streamed an event

*as of February 2013

The YouTube Nonprofit Program is

currently available in Australia, Canada,

Ireland, United Kingdom, United States,

and Germany — and it is expanding.

Your organization must be a registered

nonprofit or NGO in one of these

countries to join.

TIPS & TRICKS

What is the You-Tube Nonprofit Program

TIPS & TRICKS

Google Wallet

Donate Button

TIPS & TRICKS

Annotations & CTA Overlays

How do you maximize shareability? Make your content authentic, clear and compelling. The key is to frame it well. The masters of framing video content and making it more shareable are at Upworthy.com, “a new social media outfit with a mission: to help people find important content that is as fun to share as a FAIL video of some idiot surfing off his roof.”

They take great video content and give it enticing, provocative headlines — staffers are required to write at least 25 headlines for each clip before narrowing it down to one. You almost can’t stop yourself from clicking to see the video. Once you are watching, action prompts pop up and steer you to share with friends or sign a petition. Think about taking a page from their book:

UPWORTHY: THE MASTERS OF SHAREABILITY

Website

The most frequently used non-social media distribution method is embedding videos on organizational websites (82%). Websites are the hub of organizational content and we wonder why the other 18% aren’t sharing their video on their sites. If they are on the website, it’s important to consider where the videos are displayed. We see many sites with a “media” page. Would you create a “photo page” and have all of the photos on the site here? Never. Videos should be a dynamic part of the site, integrated with your programs and activities. Ask yourself: Is there a reason for the video being where it is? Is it paired with complementary content? Is there a call to action or a donation request on the page with the video? Is sharing made easy?

Non-Social Media

Importance of video in overall communications

Org website, emails

Search

Social media

Advertising

Do not know

Embeds (blogs, other sites)

Email

Email is still the number one way organizations stay digitally connected to their constituencies. While social media may be slowly eroding email’s role, and there is some indication that email response rates are dropping, a strong email list of supporters still fuels most social media success. That’s how supporters learn about your work, watch your videos, and then share the most interesting, exciting and meaningful content with their social networks. Recent data reveal that the promise of watching video increases open and clickthrough rates, with some reports showing that even the word video in a subject line increases response.

Using email to promote your video to existing supporters is critical to successful distribution. Your email list, those who have asked to stay connected to your organization, is your core constituency. When they share your content with their social networks, you are more likely to find, educate, and prime like-minded, new supporters.

Changes in internet technology, specifically the move to HTML5, make it easier to embed video that starts to play when an email is opened. This is still quite new, so today’s best email practice is to place a screenshot of the video that links to a page on your organizational website where the video is embedded and prominently features calls to action and sharing tools.

Any successful communications, fundraising, or advocacy campaign is a multi-faceted endeavor that involves a great deal of strategic planning, integrated components, and carefully timed phases. Video brings what you do to life. It can set up the emotional tone or take people where they can’t go (into the field) to expose the value of your work. It can also be a dynamic and powerful call to action that shows your viewers you mean business – and how well you do business!

If your organization makes engaging videos, it gives you a head start at capturing a strong share of the audience. And if you intend to produce more video – which 91% of you do – make sure to coordinate all aspects of your planning and execution - emails, social media outreach and web assets. These tools are essential for communicating policy, extensive statistics, and repeated messaging; in part, of course, because video needs more resources to plan and produce than a tweet, a photo, or an email.

Takeaway: If you want your organization to thrive in the age of mobile media and video proliferation, integrate your videos into a well-defined, integrated plan for your organization’s communications.

INTEGRATEvideo into your communications

The average attention span for a video is much higher than that for traditional text-based channels. Using video alongside other methods to reach your organization’s goals is now essential in our media-driven world. Video gives you the opportunity to tell an emotional and rational story – to engage the head and the heart – and ask people to participate alongside your organization. There is no better way, as a nonprofit, to communicate who you are and what you do and to invite people to the frontlines of your work.

Carol Cone Business + Social Purpose Chair Global Practice Chair, Edelman

While the media landscape has evolved, so have the needs of the tastemakers, influencers and gatekeepers. They are acutely aware of how their constituents act, and are on the hunt for stories that are clickable and shareable. Your approach to video should consider this mindset, and design, shape and present ideas that will enhance search, shareability, and ultimately action.

From the perspective of today’s audiences, a story that is not Tweeted, Facebooked or shared in some way is like that tree falling in a forest - does anyone really hear it?

Edelman, the largest independent public relations firm in the world, thinks about content and conversation through the prism of transmedia storytelling. They look at the media universe as four leaves of a clover. There are traditional media, for broad reach; hybrid media to amplify stories in social media; social media, to connect with social networks; and owned media assets, including a company’s websites, mobile assets and other owned content. At the center of the cloverleaf are search and video.

Effective strategies across all four leaves include the use of compelling content (video, audio, photos, infographics, text), as well as search tools and insights to ensure that the story is discovered and shared. Impactful storytelling also requires that you synchronize how, when, and where a story is told in order to drive maximum conversation and participation. In the ideal scenario, the work done boosts overall visibility and results beyond what’s capable within an otherwise siloed communications strategy.

EDELMAN ON THE NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Social

Hybrid

Owned

Traditional

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is a powerhouse fundraiser best known for their “direct response” television ads. The hospital’s fundraising arm, ALSAC, has also made a lot of video for in-person events.

With a decade of productions for the hospital under their belt, ALSAC knew how well video was working and wanted to do more. So, they spent months researching and collecting data on metrics, distribution, views, cost effectiveness of outsourcing vendors vs. internal staff, projections on personnel and equipment, etc. Aside from the concrete numbers of Direct Response, however, they could not definitively show that “X” video product had raised “Y” amount of money—the “gold standard” that guides most fundraiser decisions about where to invest.

Still, ALSAC went to leadership with a bold proposal. They said that to keep up with the growing importance of video and to increase their fundraising performance would require upgrading equipment (including editing and asset-sharing systems) and doubling the size of the team with eight new employees. They also said that they wanted to be involved in the strategy and decisions about video production, so that better choices could be made about video. The leadership said YES!

“St. Jude has a luxury,” acknowledges ALSAC video producer, Shawn Kelly. “When we were trying to get to that point of making the decision to invest in a video team, it wasn’t all based on online numbers because, whether it’s a corporate CEO and four people in the room or a thousand people at a convention center—video plays a large part of all of those in-person events, but we don’t get a metric that says how many likes and views did we have.”

While most organizations can’t come close to affording this investment, it’s a powerful, forward-thinking demonstration of filling the gap between FEELING video is important, and ACTING on it being important. And it takes pretty impressive leadership to understand the new paradigm and align resources accordingly.

FAST FORWARD THINKINGat St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital

The people who go to the events, like our CEO, see the impact that our videos have on a one-to-one basis and in a group dynamic and so when it comes time to make de-cisions about expanding the video infrastructure that has to play a role in the impact we have.

Brent Royer Executive Director,

Creative Marketing Division

The future is about more. More media overall and exponentially more video. Blogs posts, emails, tweets, annual reports — and communication platforms yet to be developed – will use more video. It’s already happening.

We will use video more nimbly, with faster turn-around and more staff, and even user, participation. There will be video reports sent instantly from remote field locations to stakeholders. Video appeals for your organization’s annual giving campaign. Last-minute video pledge requests from a participant in the middle of a walk-a-thon. Quick video promos targeting off-site bidders during a silent auction.

Video is getting easier, less expensive and more efficient to make. The basic tools are already in your pocket. You can shoot and send HD movies from your phone or tablet. And your audience will most likely view them from similar devices in their pockets. Cisco projects that by 2017, two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video.

This first ever benchmark survey revealed that most of you believe that videos are important and you want to produce more of them. The barriers holding you back are money, time, organizational silos – and good, old-fashioned know how.

The fact is, whatever your skills or experience in this medium, nobody has more knowledge of your organization and its mission than you. We hope this document has given you some useful tips, tools and resources, so you can use that expertise to make videos that change the world. Just set clear goals, measure conversions and don’t’ be afraid to experiment – or to make mistakes.

Now all you have to do is jump on board – and enjoy the ride!

VIDEO IN THE FUTURE

By 2016,the sum of all forms of video (TV,

video on demand [VoD], Internet,

and P2P) will be approximately 86

percent of global consumer traffic.

It would take over 6 million years

to watch the amount of video that

will cross global IP networks each

month in 2016.

Every second, 1.2 million minutes

of video content will cross the

network in 2016.

Cisco® Visual Networking Index

86%

6 MILLION YEARS

1.2 MILLION

We reached out to about 7,000 See3 subscribers, 50 nonprofit-affiliated blogs and 200 nonprofits on Charity Navigator that represented a diverse range of missions, sizes and geographic locations. We also posted survey links and information on social media networks. Results were tallied from 446 respondents, including senior management and staff members working in development, marketing and communications and, of course, video production.

The demographics of organizations in the survey reflect the size of the overall US/Canada nonprofit market: 30% are small organizations (budgets under $500K), 25% are medium ($1-5 million budgets) and the remaining 45% have budgets ranging from $5 to $250 million per year. The greatest number of responses came from Education (21%) and Human Services (27%). Health came next (14%), followed by Arts, Culture and Humanities, International, Environment and Animal organizations.

In addition to collecting the survey data, we conducted 26 “qualitative” interviews, selecting subjects with an eye to diversity in terms of the organization type and size, the interviewee’s area of expertise, and the organization’s experience (or lack of experience) in the area of production and integration of video into marketing and development strategies.

Nonprofits with 1-4 employees represent one-fifth of the survey followed closely by those with 20-49 (19%) and 50-249 (18%). The next pool of respondents came from an even split from organizations with 5-19 employees (11%).

DETAILS & DATA GRAPHSWho responded?

Importance of video in overall communications

Environment

Health

Human services

AnimalsReligion

Arts, Culture,Humanities International

Education

See3 works with nonprofits and social causes to engage and activate people by developing strategies and creating media that deliver on fundraising, advocacy, awareness, recruitment and more.

YouTube Nonprofit Program is a resource created to help nonprofits in the US, Canada and Australia activate their cause, tell a compelling story, and launch an effective campaign on YouTube.

Edelman is the world’s largest PR firm – thousands of talented employees connecting, informing, and creating inspiring work around the globe. Edelman helps clients form relationships and effectively engage.

PARTNERS

CREDITSWriting: Gail Evenari Design: Michael Demmons, Blaine Data Analysis: Lee Friedman