Guest post by Annie Lynsen
SmallAct

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, digital marketers, educators, Web publishers, Instagram users.

Since Instagram launched its new video service in late June, users have shared tens of millions of videos on the network.

Lots of nonprofits are rocking Instagram, and several of them have started experimenting with the new, 15-second video feature to tell their stories in a new way. 

Check out five good Instagram examples from nonprofits below. (Clicking each screenshot will take you to the video; Instagram doesn’t support embedded videos.)

1The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art posted a sneak preview of an exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. This is a great way to get people excited about up-and-coming programs!

2charity:water posted a glimpse into the lives of people who just got water taps at home. Connecting your donors to those whose lives they’ve changed is a fantastic use of video.

3UNICEF USA does a sneaky teaser for their upcoming Trick-or-Treat campaign. This kind of video, though simple, helps build excitement for the organization’s forthcoming efforts and helps donors and members feel involved.

4National Geographic uses Instagram Video to create a stop-motion animation piece showing how one of their photographers packs his camera bag. Showing a tiny slice of the work you do is a great idea – in this case, photography buffs (particularly those on Instagram) will be interested to see all the equipment a National Geographic photographer carries around.

5Heal the Bay posted a short video showing the surf at Venice Beach Pier, to get people excited and remind them of their mission to create safe, healthy, clean beaches everyone can enjoy.

Have you seen any great examples of nonprofits rocking Instagram video? Post them in the comments!

The post 5 nonprofits using Instagram video appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Cause organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, foundations, social enterprises, political reformers, educators, journalists, general public.

Over the past three years, as regular readers know, Socialbrite has put together dozens of guides and compilations of resources and tools for social change advocates. See the bottom of this article for a few, and our Sharing Center is all about social tools for social change.

To celebrate Internet at Liberty, a conference on protecting protecting freedom of expression on the Internet that Google is organizing in Washington, D.C., this week — and where Socialbrite is running the social media workshops — we’re launching a new section today:

The Social Advocacy Toolkit features new and updated informational guides, tool roundups and resources for global activists, social good advocates, political reformers, NGOs and anyone looking to use online tools for social change. It includes tactics for effective campaigns, guides to the best monitoring and metrics tools (many of them free), lists of enabling platforms and organizations and other resources to help galvanize your campaign.

Below is a new guide that we’ve put together to help social change activists with their advocacy efforts, which we’re adding to the toolkit. Check out the Social Advocacy Toolkit for much more.

10 tools for activists & social change advocates

Asana: A leap ahead for productive teamwork

1Asana is a work-collaboration software suite that came out of beta in April 2012. “We built this company to change the world,” said founder Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Asana offers a simple, word processor-like interface to give people working together on a task a central place to discuss the project, share files and keep track of to-dos in real time. It’s free for teams of fewer than 30 users.

Alternatives: Yammer, Microsoft Sharepoint (for larger enterprises) and see our Collaboration roundup

PopVox: Advocate your cause in Congress

2You might remember our recent article on PopVox, an online service that individuals and grassroots organizations can use to lobby members of Congress on behalf of a cause. CEO Marci Harris founded the nonpartisan service based on her knowledge of how Congressional staffers interact with the public. For a cause to be effective, it has to be made concrete on behalf of or against a specific bill. PopVox helps you do that.

Geo-bombing with Google Earth

3I was blown away when I saw Tunisian activists from the collective blog Nawaat.org (The Core) link video testimonies of Tunisian political prisoners and human rights defenders to the Tunisian presidential palace’s location on Google Earth. Now, as you fly over the Tunisian presidential palace using a Google Earth KML file, you will see it covered with videos about human rights abuses that strongman Ben Ali tried to prevent Tunisian citizens from watching by blocking YouTube and DailyMotion. Visit earth.google.com/outreach for more examples. We’d like to see more organizations to take up “geo-bombing.”

Mapping tools: Show, don’t tell

4Any campaign or cause organizations with tech talent should consider following the steps of charity: water, which does a remarkable job of documenting their clean-water projects for individual donors through the use of Google Maps. Paull Young, their director of digital engagement, told me: “We’ve been marking all our water projects with GPS since we were founded in 2006. We had a developer crank for a few weeks late last year to create this new mapping solution. It’s not incredibly technically difficult, the hardest part is getting data from the field. You might also want to check out our Dollars to Projects reporting for even more in-depth personalized mapping.” Also doing a good job with Google Maps: A Child’s Right.

Note: Google began charging for its previously free Google Maps API last year, leading to an exodus to the open source OpenStreetMap, which we expect will continue to get better and better.

Tableau Public: Infographics made simple

5You may have noticed the Infographics Everywhere trend that’s sweeping the Web, probably spurred by the fact that infographics has been democratized — you no longer need to be a graphics guru to make a swift-looking graphic. Why not boil down your cause or campaign to a couple of key infographics? The tool we like best is Tableau Public, because it’s good and it’s free. For visualizations, Wordle and Many Eyes create great-looking word clouds. But before you plunge in, see this fantastic set of Data Visualization and Infographics Resources from Smashing Magazine — and make sure what you create isn’t info porn.

Statf.ly: Create a metrics dashboard

6What’s a campaign without a metrics dashboard, to tell you with data-driven evidence what’s resonating with your community — and what’s falling flat? There are a few newcomers to consider: Statf.ly (we like the 30-day free trial and $19/month pricetag), Sparkwi.se and Metricly. It’s worth the investment. See which one works for you and gives your campaign traction and tweak your campaign on the fly.

Dropbox: Life in the cloud is sweet

7I’ll be straight up: My hands-down favorite productivity and collaboration tool of the decade so far has been Dropbox. What was life like before the cloud? Oh, yeah, it was a pain to get stuff done. Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs and videos anywhere with an Internet connection — and share them easily. Any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. Never email yourself a file again! Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage space for free, plus 500MB more if you refer a friend who signs up. It can get pricey when moving up to Dropbox for Teams, so see what your budget allows.

CitizenTube: Get visibility for your cause videos

8CitizenTube is YouTube’s News and Politics Blog. You’ll find important breaking news videos from citizens and other newsworthy videos from news organizations, activists and politicians. You are creating your own media, right? Why not get it seen by YouTube’s legion of viewers? See a different version of it here, and follow @CitizenTube on Twitter.

Buffer: Cross-posting nirvana

9If you’re running a cause campaign, there aren’t enough hours in the day, right? So think productivity. Shonali Burke, who recently left Socialbrite, told me: “Buffer is killer. It lets you send updates to Facebook, Twitter, etc. straight from your Google Reader or a browser. You can also post them directly from Buffer. Spread them out over the day. I’m just loving it and using HootSuite less. I tend to do most of my reading via Reader, and it’s super easy to star the posts that interest me, then sort by starred items, and then add to Buffer.” The basic version is free, for up to 10 posts at a time; for heavy users, you can get the paid version.

GroupMe: Keep in touch with your team members

10If you’re at an event — a conference, a street protest, a peaceful march — with other team members, you know how difficult it it to stay in touch and to coordinate plans. Socialbrite recently gave GroupMe a test run and came away impressed. GroupMe is a free group messaging app. I like it because it’s both instant and asyncronous — that is, your teammates will see your updates instantly or when they next check their mobile devices. Call up GroupMe and invite others in your posse to join your private group. Type your update and send it to the group, as you would an SMS message, and they’ll see it in a chat thread. One of GroupMe’s key features is that it’s cross-platform: You don’t miss a beat whether you have an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or another kind of smartphone. In addition to the ability to share messages, photos and locations like the other apps, GroupMe also allows old-fashioned conference calls between group members.

Alternative: Facebook Messenger

Other tools worth a shoutout

The tools above aren’t the only ones that should be in your advocacy arsenal. Consider some of these as well:

• See our writeup on Digital Democracy and its Handheld Human Rights mobile platform for human rights in Burma/Myanmar.

• GeoChat, from InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters), is a collaboration tool that allows anyone to chat, report and get alerts on their cellphone and to map data on Google Earth, Google Maps or Virtual Earth. It uses SMS, email, and Twitter.

• Ushahidi and Frontline SMS are must-have mobile tools for anyone working with remote communities or in disaster relief areas. And they have broader uses as well.

• Join.me is a cross-platform screen sharing app that lets you give control of your computer screen to someone else.

• Shortstack, says my partner John Haydon, “is my number one choice for creating amazing Facebook Page custom tabs. You can create photo contents, reveal tabs, photo galleries and more. Check out this example of what you can create with Shortstack.” It costs $15 a month to start.

• NodeXL is a tool for finding connections between people or organizations. Mostly for geeks as it’s a bit daunting.

• If This, Then That is another interesting tool I just discovered. It helps you create certain actions when a task is triggered, like “send me a text message when my organization is mentioned on Facebook.”

• Jing from TechSmith, Screenr and Screenflow for Mac are three of the best tools for creating screencasts.

Guides for social change advocates

Here are some of Socialbrite’s other guides for social change:

• Change-makers share 10 of their favorite tools (JD Lasica)
• 12 open source tools you should be using (Kim Bale)
• 12 awesome platforms for social good (Katrina Heppler)
• An educator’s 5 top tools for social change (Barbara K. Iverson)
• Top 5 tools for the entrepreneurial journalist (Dan Pacheco)
• A change agent’s top 5 tools for social change (Allyson Kapin)
• A developer’s 5 favorite social tools (Nathan Freitas)
• 6 productivity tools for social change (Katrina Heppler)
• Complete guide to creating a video project (Tim Davies)

Related

• Making media: Tools & resources for nonprofits and social change organizations (Socialbrite)
• 10 top collaboration tools for your organization
• The Socialbrite Sharing Center
• Directory of cause organizations (Socialbrite)

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“Protect Our Defenders,” winner of the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Award among small organizations.

At NTC, expert advice on best practices in telling your nonprofit’s story

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, brands, businesses, Web publishers, educators, video producers, storytellers.

If there was one buzzword at last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, it was storytelling. On Wednesday Debra Askanse wrote about our Future of Storytelling panel. And there were at least two or three other sessions about nonprofit storytelling.

One of the most informative was the session “Sight, Sound, and Motion: Video Storytelling and Using Video for Advanced Messaging” put on by Michael Hoffman and Danny Alpert of See3 Communications, which works with nonprofit clients to create compelling video stories.

Michael and Danny offered these tips on how to make your visual story work — and I’ll second all of these recommendations, since I know a little about video production.

Choose one message

1Here’s one of the biggest shortcomings of far too many videos. Settle on a single message — not three, not two. One. You don’t need to cram your organization’s entire message into a single video. Be selective. The more messages you include, the more muddled it becomes. Marketing folks have lived by this rule for decades.

Decide who you’re trying to reach

2You’re creating your video for a reason, right? It’s not to communicate to your staff. Or even to the public. “There’s no such thing as the general public,” Michael said. Target your audience and speak to them. Frame the story in a way that touches and appeals to those people.

Decide what you want them to do

3After you grab people’s attention, what is your call to action? You want to gently but forcefully direct viewers to take a specific action on your behalf. “How realistic is the ask?” Michael said. He pointed to YouTube annotations (see our article How to effectively use calls to action in nonprofit videos) as a great, underutilized mechanism to make your call to action crystal clear — in text form that pops up during the video. “Every one of you should be using annotations in your video in some way.”

One video with a great call to action — Protect Our Defenders (shown at top, with screen grab immediately above) — won this year’s Nonprofit Video Award in the small organization category for best use of video for the social good. At the end of the 1:45 video you’ll see a way to take immediate action, transporting viewers to the petition page or letting them share it on Facebook or Twitter. (This gets a little technical: You add 15 to 20 seconds at the end of the video with these “buttons” hot-linked to your pages; only certain kinds of software can pull this off.)

Michael and Danny went on to offer rules of thumb to help your audience understand and act on your message. To simplify things, I’ll combine these with the tips above:

Keep your video simple

4The most effective messaging is clean, clear-cut and to the point. “Every video you make doesn’t have to tell the whole story,” Danny said. “It’s a hard lesson for nonprofits to learn.” Resist the temptation by internal stakeholders to grab a share of the spotlight. The beautiful 36-second UNICEF Tap Project video above, showing kids drinking water, is fast-paced but calm and simple. Its only downside: UNICEF doesn’t give you an easy way to donate.

Create aspiration

5Make a connection between your nonprofit’s work and the lives of the kids or constituents you serve, and find a way to communicate that in a compelling way. The video from FosterParentsRock.org does this effectively. “The best fundraisers understand that messaging has to be as much about the donor as the cause,” Michael said. “Your donor wants to feel a certain way, see themselves as a certain type of person. In this video, you want to be the parents who step in to make a child’s life better. You want to live in a house like they do, and act for the good a child like they do.” (Side note: One attendee pointed out that the children in the video are actors, which may be off-putting to some viewers who pick up on that. This raises all sorts of touchy issues about when to use real kids in a video who benefit from a nonprofit’s work.)

Keep it personal

6What works on YouTube? Think personal videos, not PSAs — and avoid “policy videos” at all costs. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation pulled this off nicely and used real kids rather than actors. This Visible Men video is earnest and personable. And don’t shy away from funny if you can pull it off. I loved Kitty Midnight Madness (above), a funny, offbeat video from the Winnipeg Humane Society, though it runs on too long.

Make it authentic

7Is your cause genuine or manufactured? “People’s BS meters will go off if it’s not authentic,” Danny warned. The Define American video above is amazing, and it gets particularly powerful 70 seconds in when Jose begins talking about his trip to the DMV.

Connect to the Zeitgeist

8What’s in the headlines? What are people talking about? What are the cultural touchstones people are buzzing about? It might be about stand your ground gun laws, or equal rights laws, or a celebrity advocating a cause. Tap into that.

Take your viewers on a journey

9“Take the audience someplace they can’t go on their own, and bring them back changed,” Michael said in a wise and sublime final piece of advice. Hollywood filmmakers do this with every major release. You can, too, in the span of a few minutes. Take a look at almost any charity: water report from the field. “You get the sense that you now know that village a little, and you come away inspired. It’s as if we’re coming out of a movie theater with the feeling that we’ve had a changing experience in some way.”

Be bold and be brave

10Said Michael: “There a lots of reasons you can’t make a video. No time. Not enough resources. But you need to do it. And you need to be clear and straight and authentic – you need to boldly tell your story, the story that was at the core of why your organization exists. Be brave in the telling. Don’t please everyone. Make your strong connections stronger.”

Fantastic advice.

A word about copyright

I wrote a book, “Darknet,” a few years back that addressed the disconnect between the digital generation and current copyright law, so I’m always intrigued by the ways the culture continues to test the boundaries. I pointed out that one of the videos shown contained a large portion of a Coldplay song. The See3 execs began with the disclaimed that they’re not lawyers and noted that the clip couldn’t play on TV without a release waiver from Coldplay, but that YouTube was a gray area, given that the site often allows viewers to buy the music contained in a clip. Danny also observed that when filming in a village or a public place but is still identifiable, “as long as the person doesn’t speak on camera, you don’t need a release” as a general rule.

One audience member pointed to a site I hadn’t heard of: mobygratis.com, from the musician Moby, who lets nonprofits use his music for free.

6th annual DoGooder Awards

During lunch Thursday, we were treated to clips from the winners of the 6th annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards, with 1,100 entries from more than 700 organizations and 12,000 votes cast — up from 40 videos entered in the first year.

See3 also offers the Daily DoGooder, a free cause video sent to your in-box each weekday that’s worth subscribing to.

Nonprofit video storytelling has come a long way. Check out some of the other entries to get inspired — then tell your own story!

Related on Socialbrite

• Storytelling 2.0: Why nonprofits need to tell stories

• How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling

• How to effectively use calls to action in nonprofit videos

• Tutorials on social media: Video & multimedia

• Nonprofit storytelling tips from the pros

The post 10 secrets to video storytelling success appeared first on Socialbrite.

Today my Socialbrite partner Shonali Burke and I are giving a presentation to NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) at the United Nations.

Back in November, an invitation flew into our laps from Amine Lamrabat of the Civil Society and Outreach Unit (CSOU), Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD), Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). By gosh, when it comes to acronyms, nobody beats the UN!

The department is focusing in the new year on marshalling resources to combat poverty — quite a challenge, considering up to 80 percent of the world’s 7 billion people live in poverty or near-poverty conditions. (See stats from the World Bank.) So we tailored our presentation to highlight the work of some international nonprofits that are making an impact, especially in the developing world (or Global South, as some call it), including:

• Send a Cow, a UK-based nonprofit that is helping African farmers create a sustainable ecosystem and a process of paying it forward. Farmers who are helped, with training on how to grow crops in harsh climates, agree to pass that knowledge on to other farmers — along with a first-born calf. Send a Cow helps African farmers grow enough food to feed their families, sell their produce, start small businesses and rise out of poverty. They do a nice job with their website, produce high-quality videos and are growing a fan base on Twitter and Facebook, though we couldn’t spot any online fundraising or mobile efforts.

• USA for UNHCR’s Blue Key campaign, which Shonali is overseeing, has built a nice community over the past year, with occasional tweet-a-thons to raise funds, $5 per key, and awareness about the plight of refugees.

• In my view, charity: water has made the most astonishing use of social media and new media, with breathtakingly good videos, multimedia, photography and smart ways to mobilize social networks. Check out the story of charity: water video they did for their 5-year anniversary as well as the new WaterForward campaign. Also, see the video How charity: water changes lives through multimedia and find your charity: water project on a map — I’ve been using on that in my presentations for years.

We’ll also be discussing:

• Epic Change and its annual To Mama With Love campaign

• 1-to-1 micro-giving and micro-fundraising platforms, including Vittana, give2gether, Razoo, Causevox, Kiva (for loans) and DonorsChoose.

• We’re proud that Socialbrite strategist Ken Banks has created a mobile NewsWatch series for National Geographic online, focusing on use of SMS for social and economic good in the developing world. Also see Frontline SMS mobile case studies.

We’ll be tweeting about our UN appearance on our @socialbrite Twitter channel.

The post How NGOs can use social media to combat poverty appeared first on Socialbrite.

Water, the Web and high storytelling & production values

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) divisions, video producers, educators, journalists, general public.

This is part three of our three-part series on how nonprofits can create engaging multimedia stories that motivate supporters to take a desired action. Also see:

• Creating compelling advocacy videos for nonprofits

• How to effectively use calls to action in nonprofit videos

With more than 1.3 million Twitter followers, 210,000 Facebook likes, and an extremely accessible and interesting blog called the charity: water log, the organization charity: water has successfully tapped the social media well, so to speak. We wanted to feature charity: water here because it is a nonprofit leader in social media and also because it embodies what it means for an organization to embrace all things multimedia.

Stunning visual storytelling is the key to charity: water’s remarkable social advocacy and online fundraising success. In just five years, charity: water has brought clean, safe drinking water to more than 2 million people in 19 developing countries.

Mo Scarpelli, charity: water’s multimedia producer, recently sat down with me and shared some secrets to their success. Some 70 percent of their contributions come from online donations and online fundraisers, so it’s no wonder the organization puts so much love into its digital efforts. Scarpelli noted that charity: water’s digital storytelling drives their success – it’s how they connects and keeps in touch with their supporters. It helps that their founder, Scott Harrison, is a photographer himself and loves storytelling.

Who do they reach?

charity: water uses multimedia to express heartfelt, character-driven stories about the water crisis and the projects their donors are helping to support. Scarpelli explained that given the wide selection of content available online, website visitors are likely to tune out if their visuals are not compelling and professional looking. Crafting stories in an interesting way that people can connect with has really paid off for the organization and the people it serves.

Their most engaged supporters – their fundraisers – are inspired by and kept updated with stunning multimedia in the Stories From The Field and Campaigns To Watch sections of their website. To date, charity: water has shared 20-30 carefully crafted videos on their blog that highlight projects and the work of its donors. These videos drive home the message – about diseases from untreated water, of a woman with baby on her hip talking about the well saving one of her children and how a well enables young girls to attend school when they would otherwise have to be spending hours searching for water.

While they admit that video is what moves people the most toward their mission, charity: water’s use of still photography also brings to life many of their stories online, in print and at events. However, one of their widest reaching uses of still photography is through their Photo of The Day, a series of beautiful images accompanied by short updates designed to reach their 1.3 million Twitter followers. Supporters who want to stay connected to the charity’s work on a regular basis can count on a captivating Photo of the Day tweet every afternoon.

charity: water’s annual September campaign trailer video housed on their home page engages supporters across all channels. Scarpelli emphasizes that everyone at the company – from accountants to Web developers to their founder – are enlisted to share this high-traffic video with their personal networks and to help grow support for their cause.  This strategy has proven very successful in getting tens of thousands of video views on the launch day.

How does charity: water create such compelling stories? Read More on Major Multimedia’s blog.

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Experiment with the approaches below to see which works best for you

Target audience:Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, bloggers, social media managers.

This is the first in our new series of articles on how nonprofits can get the most out of Twitter.

By Kyria Abrahams
Socialbrite staff

We’re kicking off our new series on how nonprofits can make the best use of Twitter with a roundup of organizations that showcase a strong voice in the community. Below are eight popular nonprofits on Twitter today as well as an overview of their varying styles and strategies.

These organizations are successfully using the following approaches. They:

• Support other nonprofit Twitter users with Follow Friday.
• Retweet others.
• Quote well-known and well-respected voices.
• Write concise “teaser-style” tweets that link back to their main website.
• Make ample use of hashtags or create their own.
• Ask questions that engage their followers.
• Use human interest stories.
• Respond to tweets that mention their organization.

charity: water

1With 1.3 million followers, charity: water is the first Twitter result when using the search term “nonprofit.” The organization’s focus is clear and so are their tweets, many of which focus on celebrating individual supporters, small donors and partners. Tweets feature a compelling teaser, which links back to their website.

The Gates Foundation

2The Gates Foundation makes ample use of hashtags and actively participates in “Follow Friday” (hashtag: #FF), a practice which builds a sense of community around their cause and can be seen as a type of online partnering. They utilize a “Photo of the Day” that links back to their site, a tactic which is also used by Charity Water. If anyone has ideas on properly using Twitter, it’s probably Bill Gates.

The Humane Society

3The Humane Society originated the popular hashtag #FelineFriday, which encourages people to post photos of their cats. The tag is so popular that I sent them a tweet asking if they had come up with the concept. They replied to me within two days, which means that they’ve also got a crack team checking on all their @replies — another big plus!

Free Arts

4With chapters in Minnesota and New York, Free Arts uses Twitter to share inspirational quotes and links to interesting articles related to their cause. Quotes work well on Twitter because people are more apt to retweet inspirational quotes than another link to your blog. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about having writer’s block.

Free Arts

5St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital gracefully retweeted Cindy Crawford after she wrote about spending the day at their facility. Understated and natural retweeting — sometimes pre-scheduled — is preferable to having a page littered with unanswered posts begging to be retweeted by celebrities who will probably just ignore you anyway.

Direct Relief

6Direct Reliefmakes good use of newsworthy hashtags like #healthcare and does a fair amount of retweeting others.

Room to Read

7We like Room to Read for asking interactive questions on hot topics people might be searching for. Asking simple, personalized questions offers an opportunity for users to @reply to you when they otherwise may be disinclined to.

Operation Smile

8Operation Smile updates readers with human interest stories of specific children they’ve helped, and links to well-produced videos highlighting their mission. Like many others, they also use a “Pic of the Day.”

You may wish to experiment with each of these different approaches and see which works best for you. Eventually, you’ll find your own unique Twitter style. Remember that you want to be seen as an educational, entertaining destination and not as a marketing tool. Don’t be afraid to keep the reigns a little lose, have some fun and build community. Then get tweeting!

Stay tuned for more best practices for nonprofits on Twitter in this ongoing series!

The post 8 nonprofit Twitter superstars appeared first on Socialbrite.

Strategies for identifying stories that exemplify your organization’s mission

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, educators, video producers, Web publishers, storytellers, individuals.

Part 1 of a two-part series focused on using video to tell compelling stories. Also see part 2:
• 16 tips for making video interviews come alive

By Lindsay Oberst
Socialbrite staff

All too often, nonprofit organizations fail to take advantage of their greatest asset: stories.

Stories help us interact with our world and make sense of it. They link us together and shape our view of the world. Nonprofits, however, often miss the stories that surround them; the stories that can help them raise more funding, expand awareness of their cause and reach their goals.

Rob Wu is the creator of CauseVox, a platform to help nonprofits raise funds. He believes that nonprofits are missing a huge opportunity in stories.

“Generally, nonprofits use some level of storytelling but not to the fullest,” Wu said in an email. “The nonprofits that use stories in a meaningful way craft an overarching narrative of their organization and supporting stories that compel their audiences to action. Often, I hear nonprofits talk about fundraising strategies or a communications plan, but seldom do they talk about a storytelling strategy.”

Using stories is something that nonprofits can do in many areas of their work, yet videos are a particularly powerful tool. Especially considering that U.S. Internet viewers watch almost 20 hours of online video per month, according to statistics released in June.

Video storytelling draws us in by appealing to our emotions — a faraway woman with big eyes telling us about the children she can barely feed or the excitable entrepreneur full of passion for his idea. And then if done properly, video stories cause people to take action.

If your nonprofit wants to make use of stories, how can you take a step back and find the right stories that support the causes that matter to you? Here are three steps you can take to discover amazing, powerful stories to use in your own videos:

Be open to telling stories

Storytellers for Good

1When stories are part of daily work, people work in a different way. They start asking questions and listening to people more deeply.

Cara Jones founded Storytellers for Good as a platform for telling and promoting stories of people who are making a positive difference. She believes nonprofits should create a storytelling culture in the work place.

“This will have an inspirational impact on all involved,” Jones said by email.

If you want to find stories, you’ve got to weave them into your business model, always seeking them out with a method to collect them.

On the Causevox blog, Jones gives the following tips, which can help nonprofits pay attention to stories:

• Hold a monthly event where you gather your employees to share inspiring stories.
• Create an organizational story bank to record these stories.

Danielle Bernstein created Clear Films, an independent production company dedicated to social change. She also encourages the nonprofits she works with to think about the stories that surround their missions.

She carries a camera with her most of the time. With the rise of easy, handy video cameras, it’s possible for all nonprofits to equip someone on their team with a video camera.

Another thing you can do is to stimulate your creativity by watching other great videos. (Here are eight great examples of nonprofit video storytelling.)

When your nonprofit opens itself to stories, it welcomes great work even with limited resources. But you have to find the right stories that people can relate to.

Look for a story people can identify with

2As you begin to see stories around you, you’ll notice how our stories all contain common threads. Keep yourself aware of the stories that appeal to your personal emotions in some way. These stories are often can be used by nonprofits to make a difference.

“The stories that rise to the top for video purposes will be emotionally compelling,” Jones said.

“Without emotion, without that feeling, people just don’t get inspired,” Chris Yates said in a phone interview. He created Huddle Productions, which combines social media and video.

Sparking inspiration with your videos is important. However, the best videos — the ones that inspire people to act — go further and create a feeling of hope. Tragedy and transformation are key components that work well in nonprofit videos. Both of these can inspire hope when the story has a positive aspect to it.

Bernstein talked about the importance of uplifting stories. If people are going to take action after watching a video story, they need to believe that change is possible.

Pinpointing individuals is also critical. “It’s about trusting when you connect with people,” Bernstein said. “There’s always something even with different cultures.”

The charity:water campaign for clean water in Haiti.

charity: water is a wonderful example of a nonprofit using specific stories to support their efforts to bring clean water to people in developing nations. They have a section on their blog devoted to individual stories “from the field” and “from the office.” Also, they highlight stories in their videos. For example, their water campaign for Haiti uses the story of one of their workers to frame the need for help in Haiti.

As Yates said, “You’ve got to make it personal. Nobody really feels sympathy for a brand.”

Be patient and the stories will surface

3The best stories aren’t always the ones that jump out at you. Sometimes the real stories are the ones you only notice after interacting with people several times.

“It’s about taking the time to be where you need to be,” Bernstein said. “And then spending the time you need to spend.”

Yates doesn’t believe in forcing the story. He doesn’t go into an interview with specific questions. Instead, he allows the story to surface from the conversation.

“The best stories are the answers,” he said. “It’s not my story, it’s their story.”

Humans have always communicated using stories. Some stories are hundreds of years old and are still used to teach and inform people today.

How is your nonprofit organization incorporating stories into its strategy? Have you used stories in your video campaigns? Tell us in the comments below!

Coming in Part 2: Tips for getting people to tell stories on camera

PHOTO AT TOP BY Rae Allen

Related

• Use video to get to heart of your organization’s story: An interview with Cara Jones (Socialbrite)

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling (Socialbrite)

• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling (Socialbrite)

• Articles on how nonprofits can create media (Socialbrite)

The post How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, social enterprises, NGOs, foundations, cause organizations, Web publishers, small businesses.

As regular readers know, I’ve been a longtime proponent of visual storytelling to advance the missions of nonprofits, cause organizations and businesses. (Heck, I co-founded Ourmedia.org before there was a YouTube.) People take action on behalf of a cause only when they feel an emotional connection, and yet nonprofits in particular are famously bad at telling their own stories.

What we tell people in our Socialbrite bootcamps and in our consulting work is this: Every nonprofit is now a media organization (the same goes for social enterprises and businesses). Never before have the tools of visual storytelling been so inexpensive, easy to use and accessible to the masses.

So why aren’t you taking advantage of visual storytelling yet? (Or are you? Tell us in the comments!)

There are dozens of ways to convey your story, and we’ve laid out lots of ways to get started — see the links at the bottom of this article.

Today we’d like to highlight a few best-of-breed examples of visual storytelling so that you can think about how to take a similar approach for your organization. At least one of the examples cited below should trigger an insight — an idea that resonates or an approach that you might consider using with your team or with a production partner.

Remember, it’s not about the tools or the technology. It’s about finding people who encapsulate what your core objective is all about — and conveying their stories with power, genuineness, passion and humility. Some can be elaborate productions, with narration, titling and musical score all working together. Others can be as simple as holding up a video-capable smartphone to capture a moment.

One you have a visual story, or several, that you can draw upon, you’ll be able to begin using it in your public outreach: on your website or blog, on your Facebook page, in your annual report, in your email newsletters. And don’t forget to enter contests like the DoGooder Awards, TechSoup Storytelling Challenge or CurrentTV’s just-ended The Current Cause, where $15,000 in prizes will be awarded.

Here are seven great examples of nonprofit storytelling:

1/ Classic video advocacy

“Breathe,” by Repower America

advocacyLast month’s 5th annual DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards, presented by YouTube and See3 Communications — See3 is at the forefront of nonprofit video storytelling — drew 1,350 submissions from 750 nonprofits, with 16 finalists and four winners.

Among the winners were:
• Best thrifty video: It’s In Your Hands, by Watershed Management Group
• Best large organization video: A Public Service Announcement Not Approved by AJWS, by the American Jewish World Service

Some entries I liked better included:
• Breathe, by Repower America (1:33, embedded above)
• The funny, celebrity-studded Seriously, Serious PSA (featuring B.J. Novak & Friends) by malarianomore (1:01)

Sign up to receive See3’s Daily DoGooder: a daily cause video delivered to your in-box.

And here were the 2010 winners. Observe how other organizations are telling their stories — which style did you like: earnest, funny, polished, grassroots?

2/ Digital stories using photos & narration

“Mountaintop Library Expands Horizons,” by Room to Read

digital storiesI’ve been involved in the digital storytelling movement since 2004. A vastly underutilized medium, digital storytelling uses photos, video, film or found materials, combined with voice-over narration, to convey powerful, evocative stories with a rich emotional dimension.

Our in-depth tutorials Digital storytelling from soup to nuts and Digital storytelling: A tutorial in 10 easy steps offers some great examples. But for a simpler way to do this, look no further than the winner of February’s TechSoup Storytelling Challenge.

The first place winner, Mountaintop Library Expands Horizons, by Room to Read (embedded above), took advantage of visually stunning photos taken in Nepal and weaved together a simple 60-second story about the San Francisco nonprofit’s global literacy mission. Nicely done — with no video at all. This is something your organization can do on its own, no?

3/ Videos with a call to action

call to actionSince YouTube rolled out a free “call-to-action overlay” feature for nonprofits in March 2009, a lot of nonprofits (but too few) have made use of the technique. Nonprofits can place an “ask” in the opaque pop-up overlay. As YouTube explains:

“Adding a Call-to-Action overlay to your video is easy. First, run a campaign to promote your video on YouTube. Then, go to the Video Details page under My Videos and fill out the fields in the section marked ‘Call-to-Action overlay.’ All you have to do is include a short headline, ad text, a destination url, and upload an optional image, and the overlay will appear whenever someone watches your video. Clicks on the overlay will be tracked in YouTube Insight.”

YouTube also offers tips on how to run an effective campaign.

Two examples:

• World Water Day Video from charity: water, with a 15-second ad overlay at the beginning, earned charity: water $10,000 in a single day, largely thanks to YouTube placing it on its home page. The overlay url takes users to its Donate page.

• StillerStrong, stealing great ideas from other charities to build schools in Haiti, with an ad overlay throughout. I think we’ll increasingly see requests for text2give mobile donations, as shown above.

4/ Mobile devices: Video on the go

mobileSometimes, simple is better. Video producers and photographers often say, the best device is the one you have with you — and that gadget is increasingly a smartphone — an iPhone, Android device or Nokia phone — or a Flip cam or other portable device.

Here are two examples:

• Flip Video and Save the Bay

• Save Our Sounds, by J.D. Lasica, interview conducted in London with a Flip HD Ultra.

5/ Animation

“Do You Own Stuff Made by Slaves?” by Call + Response

animationSome subjects are best told using evocative imagery or animation rather than documentary or traditional video techniques.

Six examples:

• The Girl Effect, by girleffect, is almost without peer.

• Do You Own Stuff Made by Slaves, by Call + Response (2:01) doesn’t have celebrities, but it contains a compelling, little-heard message and inventive animation.

• The EACH Campaign, by LegatumMedia, is visually arresting, though may lack a sufficient emotional impact.

• Prospera: A new way of doing business in Mexico: a social enterprise story.

• 300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds, by the Post Carbon Institute, won the Best large organization video in the Do Gooder Nonprofit Video Awards.

• Closed Zone, by Ground Report: life in Gaza.

6/ Creative mashups

mashupsOne of my favorite flavors of nonprofit storytelling is the kind that takes advantage of the visually interesting styles you can get by using sites like RockYou, Slide, Animoto and Stupeflix. (We covered them in Mash up a visual story for your nonprofit.) The creative possibilities are boundless.

One example is the Will Steger Foundation Mashup Video, showing climate change made accessible.

7/ Personalized videos

personalized videosThis is a risky technique — the line between engaging and gimmicky is a thin one — but I’m still a fan of videos that let viewers insert themselves into the storyline. For young people in particular, personalization is part of the new media ecosystem.

Note: These videos have been removed.

• beyond oil, by Moving Beyond Oil, lets you “make this video about you” by adding your name and email address and forwarding it to President Obama.

• Glenn Beck Attacks Progressive Voter, by cnnbc (aka MoveOn.org), is a funny takedown of the wacked-out Fox News show host — using clips of his own rants — who was recently fired by the network. One lesson: Someones humor works in a field where we take our work very seriously.

8/ High-end professional productions

Trailer of Burbax, Ethiopia from A Glimmer of Hope on Vimeo.

high-endI saved the high-end professional productions for last because most nonprofits look at these, throw up their hands and say, I can’t do that. Well, two answers. First, maybe you can, by partnering with an organization like Storytellers for Good, a small outfit in San Francisco that’s doing some amazing work with nonprofits (see video at top). Second, don’t get distracted by productions whose budgets outstrip your budget — people don’t expect every visual story to be a masterpiece.

If you hook up with the right storytelling organization — ActiveVoice in San Francisco and Free Range Studios in New York are also good places to start — or if you have a decent budget, then find a local video production outfit and go for it.

Here are seven high-end professionally produced videos that caught my eye:

• LTBH Feature – Austin 2009, by A Glimmer of Hope, at the top of this story. A Glimmer of Hope also offers some wonderful examples of storytelling with images.
• Trailer of Burbax, Ethiopia, by A Glimmer of Hope — the music chokes me up every time I watch it.
• Mama Hope, by Storytellers for Good (above)
• Charity: water’s September birthdays — or almost any charity: water video
• Jai Pausch Public Service Announcement by the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network at pancan.org
• Rooftop Gardens, on CurrentTV — while I love CurrentTV, they could benefit from a big splash of variety.
• And, of course, let’s not forget the Official music video for OK Go’s “White Knuckles,” benefiting the ASPCA — 9.7 million YouTubers can’t be wrong.

I’m sure you have your own favorites — please share. Which kind of storytelling do you like, and why? What did I miss? Let us know in the comments!

Related

• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling (Socialbrite)

• Visual storytelling checklist (Socialbrite)

• Mash up a visual story for your nonprofit (Socialbrite)

• Digital storytelling: A tutorial in 10 easy steps (Socialbrite)

• Roundup of resources on how to create media (Socialbrite)

• Create video stories for your nonprofit in 6 steps (Socialbrite)

• How to maximize your nonprofit’s impact with YouTube (Socialbrite)

• Vimeo channels for nonprofits

• How to run an effective campaign (YouTube)

• Secrets to Nonprofit Video Success (CitizenTube)

• Kivi Miller’s Delicious bookmarks on nonprofit storytelling

The post 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling appeared first on Socialbrite.

At BlogWorld Expo, tools and strategies for nonprofits

The first Causes/Activism track at the just-ended Blogworld Expo in Las Vegas drew some 1,500 participants — a promising showing by the nonprofit community. I moderated the Tools for Nonprofit Organizations panel, with panelists Judy Chang of Paypal, Justin Perkins of Care2, David Levy of SocialVibe, James Sutandyo of Causecast and consultant Scott Henderson.

Here’s my Flickr photo set of BlogWorld Expo, about 60 photos in all. I also put together this Delicious tag — delicious.com/bwe09 — to aggregate many of the the services, tools and platforms that nonprofits and social change organizations can use to raise funds to advance their missions online.

About 100 people, chiefly from nonprofits small and large, attended our panel and you can follow what they tweeted about the session at #tools4npo

The panelists collectively came up with these recommendations:

8 tips for raising funds online

1. Make it a specific project, not for the overarching nonprofit or a general fund

2. Tell a compelling story with a strong human-interest angle

3. Create a feedback loop from the recipients to the donors to form an emotional bond

4. Have a hard stop — set a date to donate by

5. Pool your efforts by collaborating with reputable like-minded partners (including trading space in partners’ email newsletters)

6. Don’t pussyfoot around — have a clear and specific “ask” or call to action

7. Consider using contests or drawings to draw in more people

8. Your destination website doesn’t matter as much as it once did, so spread your efforts across several social networks

Successful social media efforts

Panelists pointed to several initiatives that nonprofits could learn from:

• charity: water’s September birthday campaign. “They make it about you,” said Henderson.

• LiveStrong, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, has a strong community outreach program.

• America’s Giving Challenge, allowing users to vote for daily and overall causes they want to support.

• The Nature Conservancy’s Adopt an Acre of Rainforest program — for every 10 gifts you send, you’ll save 1 square foot of Rainforest.

• Invisible Children’s Visible Children Scholarship Program.

Kudos to eBay for underwriting the Causes/Activism track, and to Cause Media Group for organizing the sessions — not an easy undertaking.

The post 8 tips for raising funds online appeared first on Socialbrite.

The Twestival combined online twitter fundraising with a groundswell of offline self organized events in 202 cities around the world on February 12. This world-wide fundraiser, with a $1 million fundraising goal, brought together the Twitter community for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

Last week, I was in San Francisco leading a workshop and helped organized a group of attendees for TwestivalSF. Unfortunately, I was sick, so didn’t make to the event. One of the workshop participants kindly brought me bag of schwag which included a t-shirt and other goodies and told me how wonderful it was!

The Twestival events kicked off in New Zealand and traveled around the world. Everyone was watching closely, would they make their $1,000,000 goal?  Would Twestival forever change the nature of social media fundraising.  It has taken few days for Twestival to report on the results. Allison Fine wondered aloud why it was so difficult to find out the final numbers and whether it was a strategic decision because they were disappointing. She came to the conclusion of “campaign exhaustion” and “system challenges,” which were on target.

Based on the an analysis of previous fundraising campaigns (see “Twitter As Charitable Giving Spreader: A Brief History and Meta Analysis of Fundraising With Twitter“),  the first time I heard about Twestival I knew it signaled something different. Almost all the previous fundraising campaigns using Twitter were organized by a single person or organization. Previous fundraising on Twitter was about individuals leveraging their personal networks.

This was something different because it was a networked fundraiser of a scale we haven’t seen before and not controlled by a non-profit organization. The first post I wrote was called “Look Out Here Comes Everybody To Raise Money for charity:water on Twitter” with a wink to Clay Shirky’s work. In the comments, there was quite a lively discussion from nonprofit professionals raising some cautions and concerns.

This made me curious:

• How did Twestival get started?  What is its relationship with charity:water?
• What was the role of the nonprofit, charity:water, in working with Twestival?
• How did the relationship originate?
• How is the event being organized?
• What does this say for nonprofits in an age of connectedness?

I wrote a follow up post titled “Are Fundraising Groundswells A Massive Opportunity or Distraction for Nonprofit Organizations” based on an interview with Ben Matthews, a member of the London founding group. He told me that I really needed to interview  Amanda Rose, the person doing the lion’s share of the organizing for Twestival.  She agreed to do a reflection interview with me, sharing what worked and what didn’t.

Amanda Rose is a Canadian who moved to London from Toronto several years ago with a strong background in events, PR, and marketing. She co-founded a film and event locations company where she does consulting. She recently completed a MA in Communications Management, which is where she started to tap her passion for social media, particularly micro-blogging.

As one of the key people on the Global Twestival team, her role involved a lot of different tasks; setting the strategy, writing the guidebook, mentoring city organizers, establishing teams for sideline projects, administration, working with the charity, securing partnerships, developing website content, and communications. As Amanda notes, “It quickly became too much for one person, particularly as a volunteer. I felt responsibility for the charity’s brand and overall protection of the volunteers so they could focus on what was important.”

Not long after they announced Twestival, it took on a life of its own. Says Amanda, “I knew this was a very exciting project which would not only raise a lot of money but would create awareness and bring communities together. I originally thought that we may have 50 cities involved, but only after a week of announcing it on Twitter there were over 100 cities signed up with new requests every hour. Over a dozen Twestivals were registered in the UK alone. There was a process to become an official city because I wanted to ensure that there were teams established because organizing an event alone can be a daunting prospect.”

Amanda shares how she worked closely with the nonprofit, charity:water. Says Amanda, “The organization was very receptive, creative, and professional.  Scott Harrison, founder of charity: water was enroute to Ethiopia when we discussed Twestival. He was extremely enthusiastic, asked a lot of questions and connected me with the rest of the NYC office to work through logistics.”

Amanda says that the most important goal was that everything was done in a professional and secure way in working with the nonprofit organization, charity:water. This happened on a short-time frame too. Says Amanda, “It was really the last two weeks when Scott returned from Africa that they began to get actively involved with the NYC Twestival, attending meetings and offering whatever knowledge and resource they could. The team was fantastic and we had regular Skype calls and emails discussing issues that came up. They set up a page on their web site about the Twestival for the event and really listened to us.”

Amanda says that the skills required to manage over 200 teams of volunteers include:

• A strong vision
• Leadership ability
• Management and delegation skills
• Administration skills
• Multi-task
• Communication and networking skills
• Clear understanding of social media
• International experience
• Event management skills

There were many times Amanda was surprised by the responses to the event.  She observes that many companies, organizations, and people wanted to come together and participate without knowing exactly what or how.  Amanda notes that “It became a balancing act of figuring out what was appropriate for the Twestival sponsorship and keeping supporters engaged.”   This is probably a challenge that many event organizers with event sponsors have to face.

Amanda says “I did not expect to find myself in tears at 3am after seeing a video by a team in Asheville who spent their weekend making a video after campaigning locally, spreading news about how 1 in 6 people in the world don’t have access to clean and safe drinking water. The sheer amount of talent and contribution that came out of Twestival was mind blowing.”

Amanda is thrilled with the way the even turned out, but says she would do things differently next time around:

1) Don’t Spearhead A Worldwide Event Alone. Amanda says the next Twestival needs a better system and more capacity for managing the large number of cities and volunteers that want to participate. She notes, “I believe I did the best I could under the circumstances but felt really frustrated because I wanted to give city organizers all of the resources they asked for but either physically didn’t have time or capacity to implement.”

2) Providing A Better Virtual Hub To Support Volunteers. Amanda says the website was a key element in reaching out to the cities and that she was not prepared for the amount of work that went into setting it up. Says Amanda, “Even through this was a volunteer-run event, there was a level of expectation from people once they signed up.  I think most understood that we were doing the best we could with our resources and limited time – but it was frustrating not to be able to offer them something beyond a blog to connect and share.”

3) Be more prepared to work internationally. Amanda says it was difficult to work with cities around the world, all with different financial systems, fundraising approaches, and cultures.

4) Set up a system for incoming donations to be aggregated quickly and easily. Donations were coming in from several streams, including Amiando, Tipjoy, Paypal,  and cash donations. This made it difficult to tabulate the amount raised quickly. In addition, being able to produce real time tracking reports that showed how much each city still had to work to achieve their original fundraising target would have motivated them and spawned a bit of friendly competition.

5) Extend the planning timeline to 2-3 months. Amanda admits that it was stressful to work under these very tight timelines. “However, not unlike Twitter which is restricted to 140 characters, I wanted to challenge everyone to see what we could do in the span of a few weeks. This generated a lot of buzz and enthusiasm on Twitter and extended offline.”  Amanda observes that volunteers were amazed with what they could do in this short a timeline and the amount of creativity that surfaced was truly inspiring.  Amanda points out, “Hawaii raised over $7k in 9 days, Toronto $10k in about 15 days.  What we are left with now are international teams who have a passion to do this again – only bigger. The feedback so far has been incredible and many cities feel disappointed that they couldn’t reach their goal this time; but the amount of awareness they were able to generate through their community or local press is a testament to their hard work.”

Amanda says they’ve decided to extend their fundraising deadline beyond February 12th so they can reach the $1 million goal. Says Amanda, “At the moment the fundraising tally is over $200k, which is pretty amazing considering there are zero costs related to that (unless you count lack of sleep).  ne million was always a big aim to have and from the original goals set out by cities and other pending projects, it was certainly achieveable, which is why we decided to put it in the press release.  When we knew the number would be close, we acknowledged this as a way to increase awareness and encourage donations from the mainstream.  This was extremely successful from that standpoint and I have no doubt that we will reach our target, it just may take a little bit longer.”

charity: water have invited Amanda to visit Ethiopia with them at the start of April (costs paid by private donors, not fundraising).  She is planning to document exactly where the Twestival money is going by drilling a well and meeting with locals who will benefit from this project. Says Amanda, “I think that today, people want to have that connection with their contribution and charity: water embraces social media as a way to be as transparent as possible. This is why they were the perfect charity to work with on this somewhat experimental event series to match social networking with social good. I am grateful for the opportunity and excited about the future. ”

This post originally appeared on Beth’s Blog.

Update:

Entry-Level Living, Reflecting on Social Media Fundraising

Mashable, Twestival Raises Over $250,000
Guardian, Twestival Raises $250,000 and Expectations

Twestival Local will take place Sept. 10-13, 2009, and Twestival 2010 on Feb. 12, 2010.

The post Amanda Rose’s reflections on Twestival appeared first on Socialbrite.