Video

According to online video marketing company ReelSEO, video in email can boost open rates by 20 percent and increase clickthrough rates two to three times. GiveMN.org reports that fundraising and nonprofit pages with videos get on average four times more in donations than pages without video. Even though video can be expensive, you can find ways to produce videos you can actually be proud of with your smartphone, tablet or point-and-shoot camera if you keep it simple.

Here are six tips to help you get in the game.

Recently, FundRaising Success spoke with Mona Das of MOXY! and Engage With It founder Dana Weiss, both of whom work with Here's My Chance and See3 Communications on the DoGooder Awards, about the awards and how nonprofits can tackle video in their marketing strategies.

We all love a great and moving video made by a nonprofit organization doing amazing work to change the world. You probably remember Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 or you remember our post from last year on 11 nonprofit videos that inform and inspire (worth another visit, by the way). Here are a few more recent nonprofit videos that do a great job telling organizations' personal stories, the causes they represent, the activities they perform in the field every day or how you can be involved in their work.

How can you get donors to read your emails when the average subscriber gets 416 emails per month? The key to getting donors' or fundraisers' attention may be to send them an email they don’t have to read. In this post, we’ll show you some compelling evidence that including videos in your emails could increase your engagement and give you some tips on how to send emails people love to watch.

There are powerful videos and weak videos. So, how can you make sure your video is powerful and truly engages your donors? Here are three rules you can’t afford to violate when crafting your own video: 1. Don’t point your camera inward. What I mean by that is to focus and place the emphasis on your cause not your organization. 2. Avoid filming your executive director and staff. It’s always best to have a voice from outside your organization glorifying the effect you’re having in the community. 3. Have a clear purpose for your video.

Congratulations to the winners of the DoGooder Video Awards, who were announced at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. The DoGooder Awards recognize the creative and effective use of video to promote social good. The four winning videos are “Right By You” from Partners for Mental Health (Best Nonprofit Video), “Nutiquette: A Dude’s Guide to Checking His Nuts” from Canadian Cancer Society (Funny For Good Award), “The Paradise That Wasn’t” from Wide Angle Youth Media (Most Inspiring Youth Media) and “Slaying Childhood Cancer” from Alex’s Lemonade Stand (ImpactX Award).

A session at the Greenpeace Digital Mobilisation Skillshare in Umbria, Italy, came together to look at what makes video work for activism and draw out lessons to support planning and ideas. According to research, material that triggers a strong emotional response is twice as likely to be shared. A strong, positive emotional response is 30 percent more likely to encourage sharing than a strong but negative emotion, like shock or anger, but the strength of the response is more important.

Nonprofits that do not create a lot of their own video content can still have engaging YouTube channels by curating videos relevant to the nonprofits' missions and programs. Just because your nonprofit didn’t create a video doesn’t mean you can’t feature it on your channel. By adding videos to “Playlists” and then displaying those playlists as “Sections” on your channel, your nonprofit can have an engaging YouTube channel that makes a strong first impression.

A myth persists that nonprofits need the standard fundraising video or the basic call-to-action video to be successful. But I would argue there are a variety of ways in which you can share your story.

So, below are nine quick examples of what I have found. They are creative, unique and sometimes cutting-edge. I am hoping this can serve as inspiration when you conceive your next video story/strategy.

NGOs are leveraging the Vine platform in a variety of ways, including inspiring people with positive messages, promoting events and spreading awareness. Our picks: UNICEF uses creativity to raise awareness around an event, UN Women inspires people, Greenpeace USA uses an expert and RED creates awareness.