Fundraising Videos

Don’t make a mistake when filming videos to aid fundraising!

One of our team members called me from the USA. She was there on a private visit and, luckily, managed to find an opportunity to present about one of our client NPOs to the staff of one of America’s largest companies. The staff would then vote, and ten of the 20 global organisations presented, would receive a substantial donation in US$.

She would have a seven-minute slot and a three-to-four-minute video was required. We briefed one of our client organisations. Unfortunately, despite my briefing the NPO team and them, in turn, briefing the company doing the video, the wheels fell off. Their professional videographer, who usually did work for companies, focused on all the ‘wow’ aspects of the project. They had ignored my request to show a little of the problem – otherwise why run a project?

In this case, it was an afternoon care initiative for farm workers’ children who attend school in a nearby town. The video opened with the children in the shiny new bus that the NPO had bought to take the learners to school. Previously they had walked the three to 12 km each way, in all weather.

The video then featured the clearly excellent after-school facility with everything from art, dancing and soccer to choir singing, chess and cooking classes. Our team member cancelled the presentation as slots like these are only allocated once in five years. She knew our client NPO would not be funded.

So, what was wrong? All that it took to change the video into a fundraising film was to add 30 seconds of the poor living conditions of the farm workers’ children and five seconds of the learners in school uniform, with bags, walking along a farm road.

Don’t forget to depict the problem or crisis when filming a video to aid fundraising.