Non-profit organisations and charities use video in many ways, from marketing video, training, social media awareness, etc. Some organisations use how-to videos to educate potential donors and raise awareness, while others create case studies to show how they’ve helped specific people or groups and report to stakeholders. Fundraisers use video to tell their stories and raise money, while other non-profits use social media video to engage with supporters.
You can use videos on your website or social media channels to introduce yourself, explain what you do and why it matters (and why people should donate), and show off your organisation’s impact. These are great ways to build trust with potential donors before they donate money or time. With all this in mind, here is a quick rundown of some of the most popular video types at the moment and how they can be used.
Here are just some of the types of videos you can create for your charity or non-profit:
Case studies
Case studies and interview videos are a great way to demonstrate your organisation’s impact on its beneficiaries. They can be used in a variety of ways, including:
- To illustrate your work and build trust with potential donors, volunteers and supporters.
- As part of an application process for grant funding or other types of support.
- To highlight the results of your programs (e.g., the number of people served).
Identify someone who has benefited from your organisation’s work and then interview them about their experience. Working with a video production company, you can develop a thoughtful questionnaire that brings out the key points and emotions of the interviewee.
We’ve also created mini case studio animations where we highlight feedback from service users with little text animations. These kinds of videos, when edited, are usable on both the website and social media.
Social media video
Social media videos are a great way to share your message. They’re short and easily shared but should still be engaging and fun! They can vary entirely from funny Reels to interviews with the board, short graphic-based videos and more. They build brand awareness and retain and increase engagement.
Ensure your social media video is relevant to your audience, optimised for mobile (this varies from platform to platform, but more and more vertical is the favourite), and shareable – otherwise, it will not generate the excitement and engagement you’re after.
We recommend a mixture of User Generated Content (UGC) – content you can create yourself on a mobile phone or quickly on Canva or similar, and some professionally created content using a video production company or studio to add proper branding and direction where more thought is required for storytelling. This way you’ll have plenty of content and a good mix of stories and ideas.
Fundraising videos
Fundraising videos are one of the most effective ways to raise money for your charity or non-profit. Viewers will share an impactful and well-made fundraising video with friends and family, who will be inspired to donate their time and money. These can be filmed or animations, you can instil quite a lot of emotion with an animation if filming isn’t possible or practical.
A good example is the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s “I Wish” campaign. The video shows real children sharing their wishes with us in an emotional way that makes us want to help them. It has been viewed over 55 million times on YouTube with worldwide reach, and those people have given over $100 million!
How-to videos
How-to videos are a great way to teach your audience how to use your product or service. Or they can as a tool to highlight a how-to that is very similar to your service. For example, a gardening charity offering a how-to video on how to plant correctly is excellent for general brand awareness for reaching new people who may not have heard of you at all. You’re simply providing information they were after, and now you’re on their radar. These videos should be genuinely helpful, and so will naturally be shared.
How-to videos are great at promoting your organisation. They help build trust among potential customers by demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about and care about providing quality services at affordable prices or for free. How to type videos are often filmed but can be animated video productions as well.
And since these types of content tend to be short and sweet–about three minutes long or less, they’re easy to digest and engaging enough to keep viewers engaged and encourage them into action by sharing or discovering more.
Event videos
An event video is a great way to promote your event, share highlights from the day, and even record speakers or attendees. Videos for events are multi-use.
Event videos are also a great way to engage your community. You can use them as an entry point for other content – such as for promoting blog posts or use in social media posts you create about the event.
You can create short clips from the event itself that highlight speakers or performers so they can be shared on social media. And then create longer edits that are emailed directly to attendees who couldn’t attend in person but might still want updates about future events hosted by this organisation during its next fiscal year. These longer edits are also helpful for supporting bids and other activities.
Video can be used before the event to promote it, You can live stream on socials or a specific website during the event to keep up the hype and share with people who can’t make it, and use it to recap after and promote future events, so it’s a really powerful tool.
Video is an essential tool for non-profits to tell their story and generate more donations.
Video is a powerful tool for non-profits to tell their story, generate more donations, and gain new volunteers. It’s also an important part of your marketing strategy, ideally, you should use video in all your online communications. You don’t always have to hire a professional, there are tools to create quick content yourselves, but for a bigger project, or a properly thought-out video series it’s worth seeking a video production company. You can also check out our post, Reasons to use video for your charity, for more statistics and ideas.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to start with video production for your charity or non-profit, starting with something simple like a how-to or case study is a good idea.
If you would like to chat with us about charity video production, just send us a message, and we’ll respond quickly with prices and creativity.
