I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer and at least some of you were able to get away and had a little break and fun over the last couple of months. We would like to send a special thanks to our current and recent clients including, Cypress College, Fullerton College both of which are part of the North Orange County Community College District, Karate USA, Mt. San Rafael Hospital and Safe Kids America. A special shout out to Jared Langkilde, former Executive Director of Development at Mesa Community College, who just became President and CEO of Honor Health Foundation in Scottsdale Arizona. Congratulations Jared!
This Blog post will discuss The Huddleston Group’s success in using videos over our last 30 years to tell organizations stories during major fundraising campaigns. This is and has been a powerful medium and I encourage you to read the entire article and to see the videos listed near the end of this presentation.
In my 30 plus years of conducting major gift, capital, and marketing campaigns throughout the country I have found that one of the biggest challenges for many non-profit organizations – in this media sophisticated era – is to raise awareness, funds and support about their cause or service in a unique and effective way.
A compelling, sensitively produced video about your organization can accomplish many things that a live speaker, no matter how competent, cannot: It assures that your message is presented exactly the way you want it presented every time – and with maximum motivational power – even if you’re key presenters are not available. A good video transforms complex information into clear messages that touch the hearts and emotions of its audiences. A compelling, well-written, sensitively produced video used as the centerpiece of a carefully thought-out and well executed fundraising/marketing plan will return its cost in new financial support within a very short period of time.
Video is a powerful communicator. It commands attention, outshines print messages, and is a cost-effective way to reach your audience and elicit the response you want. If you’re thinking you can’t afford video, STOP! Production costs have actually come down over the past several years, and video is not just for big organizations with large budgets anymore. In some cases, video can actually work out to be less expensive than print – and a lot more effective.
Video moves people.
There’s no way you can bring all your prospects and donors to see for themselves what a great service you offer. You can’t take your organization to each person who might want to donate to it. Put it on video and get it out there! Make a DVD that shows potential donors exactly what you do – how well your service is, how beneficial your service truly is, how your non-profit will benefit them, their community and how they, your supporters, can make a difference in the lives of others.
A carefully designed video can be one of the most effective elements of your fundraising/community relation’s campaigns. Life seems to get more and more hectic every year, and our mailboxes and email boxes grow fuller every day. The result: a lot of marketing materials get tossed without ever being read. That is why savvy fundraisers are marketing with video: they know a video is a lot more likely to garner attention than a print piece. If you craft your message well and present it briefly and clearly to your targeted audience, it will be heard. In fact, your prospects may go even further by passing their copy to another potential donor!
Videos help potential donors see your organization in a new light. They leave audiences feeling excited about taking action and joining others to make a difference. Videos are sophisticated exercises in persuasion; they make a strong argument, involve the viewer, and engage the audience in what happens next.
A video is longer than a public service announcement (or PSA, which is usually less than one minute in length) but well under a half an hour. It may also turn out that your organization is more in need of a 7 to 10 minute informational production, something that could be used for fundraising or educate people about the work you do. This type project may call for a little more material to work with, but in some ways it can be easier to produce than a 30 second PSA since you have no time constraints. Trying to communicate everything in a succinct 30 seconds can be a real challenge.
It all boils down to a script and storyboard. Will you interview the people of importance and let them have their say? Or will you use people to tell a story? Is there a call to action requiring the viewer to do something like write a congressman or make a donation? Will the actors speak or will you use a voice over, that is, a narrator? All of these decisions fall under planning, the best thing you can do to insure a positive and successful production experience.
If this is truly your first or one of your first projects, apply the KISS rule… Keep It Simple. Interviews can work out well because there is only one person to light and mike for audio. The background can be a blank cloth, a wall, enhanced with a plant, a finite area rather than needing to deal with a whole room.
Of course the interview will only work if the person/subject speaks well on camera. It also may not communicate the service of the organization or group as much as unrehearsed video of the people engaged in their primary activity. This might be a youth organization working with underprivileged kids, a hospital building campaign, a Hospice, delivering the most sacred of care or an environmental group planting trees, beautifying a park, or saving a forest.
The video producer will prepare treatments, budgets, production schedules and scripts for your approval.
How to Get Started – Make a Plan
Is a video the right thing for you? Before you consider making a video for your organization, make sure you really need it and you know how you are going to use it.
Videos can be used for many fundraising/marketing strategies:
- Attracting new members or constituents;
- Raising awareness about an important issues;
- Organizing community members to take action on a particular issue;
- Celebrating an important anniversary of an organization or program;
- Raising capital campaign or major gift funds;
- Showcasing the work of the organization and its programs;
- Training and orienting board and new staff members.
Planning tips for your video campaign:
- Video is a forum that is well designed to convey simple, persuasive arguments.
- Choose a specific purpose for the video and design it accordingly.
- Decide how the video can be used most effectively before you begin production.
- Videos are much stronger when they don’t stand-alone. Make sure your staff members who present the video are prepared to answer specific questions and help lead discussions.
- Define your audience. Never say, “The video is for everyone.”
Video Pitfalls to Avoid
One key pitfall is that nonprofits frequently want a video to accomplish all the existing goals of the organization. A video is more powerful if it is specific in its message. Avoid making your video a laundry list of the organization’s accomplishments, or a litany of problems existing in the community. The viewer will not be moved to action by a visual representation of an annual report. However, filming a person or volunteer who works passionately on your behalf or a grateful client or patient can be enormously effective at enabling viewers to perceive a program or need in a new light. That is empowering.
Always keep in mind that what a video can do best is convey the emotional power behind a nonprofit’s mission and activities. People may read a brochure to learn lots of useful facts, but a video can make the viewer feel how important your work is. Video can make an emotional and motivational impression that your audience will remember more than the language of your mission statement. A video that just sits on the shelf or is put in the mail is not going to do very much to anyone. Make sure you have a distribution plan before you shoot.
Cost
The cost to produce a video varies widely, based on regional production prices as well as the specific need of your organization. If you are part of a national organization that wants to film interviews at programs all over the country, then your costs will go up substantially. On the other hand, if you and the video company can devise a means of generating information through a few interviews in one location, the cost can be much lower. The other factor that affects the price of the video is the length of the finished product. Many production companies charge $1,000 – $3,000 per finished minute, meaning that if the video is five minutes long it will cost $5,000 – $15,000 to produce. Trust me the cost is more than justified by savings in Campaign executive time and a far stronger and longer-lasting impression on each audience we have to reach. An important “plus”, you can have your videos produced in such a manner that, when the campaign is over, the video can be easily and inexpensively adapted for general fundraising and/or marketing use, since the organization’s history and value to the community sections can be used without change. Many of his clients have found that this is like getting a second video at almost no cost! Click here to see a sample of The Huddleston Group’s campaign videos. (A New Leaf, Alta Bates Medical Center, The Salvation Army – Our First Campaign Video). This is a great video! Wished we created it. Unsung Hero
To Sum Up
The video is also only as effective as the organization itself, and therefore a solid plan for how the video will be used is an essential component of any fundraising/marketing campaign. However, a well-planned fundraising campaign with a strong, emotional video can help to galvanize members of an organization and their constituents in a unique way. If the time is right a video can launch your organization to new heights and energize your staff, board and your donors. One last thing – we are talking about professional developed and produced videos – not self-made YouTube videos. Our clients have been very, very pleased and the results have been extraordinary. One client, Dianne Stains, Regional Executive Vice President of Safe Kids America, Walnut Creek, California, wrote in part: “Your video is applauded whenever it is shown. One prospect (who entered a meeting with a terribly negative attitude), would not even look at the video when it first began. But after a few minutes of listening to the audio, he glanced up and soon gave it his full attention. The video served to break the ice and introduce a topic that ended up being very close to his heart. By the end of the meeting, he agreed to chair our campaign and has since made a gift of $100,000!”
I hope you have found these ideas useful. If I can be of any further assistance please give me a call. To learn more about how The Huddleston Group can help you and our “special approach”, unique in the industry, please visit our website at www.TheHuddlestonGroup.com or email me at ron@thehuddlestongroup.com
Good Luck
Ron Huddleston, FAHP, CFRE
President
