Research about how non profits are using online video - published May 2013 Source http://see3.com/intofocus

1. INTO FOCUS
A BENCHMARK GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE NONPROFIT VIDEO

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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 shorter
videos
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

6. 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.
BARRIERS
WHAT is stopping you?
Budget
Staff Resources
Silos
Proof of ROI
79%
52%
39%
22%
We all love video, so why aren’t we investing in it?

7. 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 effective lighting kit. Our investments in production equipment were probably under 5,000 dollars total. It’s just getting more and more possible for people to use the instruments that they have in their hands most of the time, and the need for very cumbersome and expensive professional apparatus is just disappearing. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Silos
In 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

11. 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.

12. 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 …

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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 About
People

16. 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 it
Authentic

17. 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.

18. 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 Them
What to Do!

19. Why are you making the video? Now go make yourWhat 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 it
Simple!
TIPS & TRICKS
Planning!
Planning!
Planning!

20. BETH KANTER
on 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 Filbin
Harvard Business Review Blog, March 13, 2013

21. 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
Do not know
Non-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 Your
Video
Findable

22. Social Media
An 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 channels
used to distribute video
81%
78%
55%
16%
10%
8%
5%
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Vimeo
Google+
Pinterest
Private social network

23. 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.

24. 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 Your
Subscriber
List

25. YOUTUBE NONPROFIT PROGRAM
Tell your organization’s story through videos
on YouTube.
SIGN UP HERE.
Benefits of joining
Donate 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

26. 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

27. 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
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.

28. 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.
INTEGRATE
video 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

29. 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

30. 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 THINKING
at 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 decisions about expanding the video infrastructure that has to play a role in the impact we have.
Brent Royer
Executive Director,
Creative Marketing Division

31. 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

32. 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 GRAPHS
Who responded?
Environment
Health
Human
services
Animals
Religion
Arts, Culture,
Humanities
International
Education

33. 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
CREDITS
Writing: Gail Evenari
Design: Michael Demmons, Blaine
Data Analysis: Lee Friedman