Sharing Entries For Awards-Part Four, The Fundraising Video
We continue sharing the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America’s entries in the National President’s Marketing Awards, a marketing and communications contest held by the National Council of the BSA.
The Friends of Scouting campaign video is submitted in the Finance Support Material category. (Friends of Scouting is the council’s annual fundraising campaign.) If we are recognized with an award, it goes to Marc Tenholder, a Development Director at the council, and Chuck Voss, a veteran Scouter in Cape Girardeau, Mo., who works in the creative services department at KFVS.
Objectives
The Friends of Scouting campaign video is produced to accomplish a number of objectives:
• Explain how Scouting influences the lives of thousands of young people throughout our council
• Show families of Cub Scouts that more fun and adventure await them if they remain in the program
• Explain how the council is funded
• Show Scouts and volunteers enjoying the program and talking about its value and outcomes
• Ask prospective donors to make a Friends of Scouting contribution
The video is primarily created for use during Friends of Scouting presentations at banquets and other unit gatherings where families will be asked to contribute. The video is posted on the council’s YouTube site so it can be accessed from other websites and e-mail solicitations.
The video was produced in 2011 for use during the 2012 campaign.
Planning
We received positive feedback from the previous year’s video that featured youth members in all levels of the program. We wanted to improve this year’s video by including more ethnic diversity, featuring all council camps and properties, and showing all levels of the Scouting program.
Council staff members used FlipCameras to record interviews and activities taking place at our council camps during the fall. The raw video was cataloged. A script was developed and a rough outline was produced. A member of the council’s marketing committee, who also is a video producer at a television station in the council, reviewed the video, the script and the outline. He performed the editing, sound mixing, and recruited the professional announcer from his television station to perform the voice over.
More than 150 DVDs were produced and distributed to volunteers throughout the council’s 15 geographic districts. The video also was played during the council’s Friends of Scouting kickoff dinner and Executive Board meeting.
Impact
This campaign raises approximately $750,000 each year. To date in 2012, the campaign raised $324,450, which is tracking approximately 5 percent ahead of 2011.
Lessons Learned
Scheduling the editing and production of the video needs particular attention during an election year as our producer communicated to us that his workload will be quite heavy between July and November. We also plan to get more video of Cub Scout day camps and Boy Scout summer camps to better showcase the wide variety of programs and activities made available by Friends of Scouting donations.
We also received some negative feedback on the professional announcer reading the script. Instead of the more polished approach, some believe the script should be read by an articulate older Boy Scout or Venturer.
How YouTube Connects Nonprofits With Video Producers
Many nonprofit or charitable organizations are at a loss when trying to recruit volunteers with a specific skill set or gain pro bono assistance for special projects. Nonprofits often are able to find people to serve meals, coach teams or lead Bible study groups.
It’s often a struggle to find volunteers with specific communications skills. Paid staff members are often focused on completing many fundamental tasks to keep their organizations functioning. When faced with producing marketing and communications materials to promote their mission or raise funds, they often must spend significant financial resources. Producing quality videos is one of those daunting tasks. Who is going to do this for us and can we trust them? How much is it going to cost? Will we get a return on our investment?
Now, YouTube’s Video Volunteers page is connecting charitable organizations with video producers to develop fund-raising and promotional videos. (Read CNN report on the topic.) The video posted above is by Shawn Ahmed, who produced a video for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. It’s been viewed more than 365,000 times. Ahmed previously produced a video in Bangladesh and raised funds for poverty relief there through his personal project, Uncultured.
“Telling Your Story With Video” is the topic for Tuesday’s luncheon of the Community Service Public Relations Council (CSPRC). More than 80 people are expected to attend. (Attendance is almost 25 percent higher than most luncheons. However, attendance is trending upward because of the outstanding content presented by marketing and communications professionals in our community.) Click here for online registration.
(Disclaimer: Joe Mueller is president of CSPRC in 2009-2010.)
Using Video For Storytelling, Fundraising
If nonprofit organizations are going to be successful in raising funds, they must effectively tell their story. It helps when stories have strong emotional ties and can be told with photography or video.
This video was produced last month as part of a National Court of Honor ceremony by the Boy Scouts of America here in the Greater St. Louis Area Council. The Scout received an Honor Medal, the second-highest that can be bestowed for an act of heroism.
It was shot with a Flip camera. Most of the editing was done with the software that came from the Flip camera. Some music and sound editing were performed later in the process. It was uploaded to the council’s YouTube site, www.youtube.com/stlbsavideos. A media advisory was distributed a few days before the event. At least two reporters watched the video and said it contributed to their decision to cover the event. (One television reporter almost duplicated the interview on the video. She had the Scout recall the rescue near the scene of the incident.)
After the video was played at the event on Wednesday night, the Scout received a lengthy standing ovation. Three members of the Greater St. Louis Area Council’s Executive Board made the presentation. (Photos from the event can be seen on Flickr.) The event kicked of the council’s 2010 fundraising campaign.
During a conversation with a friend today, it was mentioned that nonprofit communications and marketing professionals must be a jack of all trades and a master of none. As today’s social media channels evolve, fast and efficient delivery of good content trumps style and meticulousness.
Your feedback and comments are welcome.
YouTube Adds Interactive Elements For Nonprofit Videos
Nonprofit marketing and communcations professionals quickly grasped the effectiveness of posting videos on YouTube sites. Videos can help promote programs, engage volunteers and enhance fundraising and capital campaigns.
Now, YouTube added two key elements that can drastically improve the ability of people to interact with your organization as they watch your video on your nonprofit YouTube site.
Here’s a video that explains the new tools and shows how easy it is to work with the interface.
Special thanks to Michael Hoffman at See3 Communications for passing this along. Michael’s recent blog post is mentioned in the video.
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