Video has long been a highly effective medium for getting out a message, but only in recent years — with the advent of inexpensive cameras, consumer-friendly editing software and broadband Internet — has it become truly accessible to everyone, including your nonprofit organization.

The apparent ease of production, however, does not mean video-making should be taken lightly. A well-crafted PSA or information video posted on your website and YouTube can be wonderful for garnering attention for programs, but a poorly executed one may well lack the flash to grab people’s attention on the video-saturated web.

“Just a couple of years ago there seemed to be a movement toward low-quality video,” says Mike Edgell, an award-winning video producer with the marketing firm Thornley Fallis. “It’s a connected, online generation, and for some reason people thought quality didn’t matter anymore. But would any nonprofit write a poor press release, or not prepare for an important speech, or not fix the sign on their building if it fell down? Why drop the ball when it comes to video?”

Of course, the reason is usually expense. It takes more than just a good camera to make a good video. Indeed, Edgell says that at the upper end of the scale, a video of TV-commercial quality can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thankfully, options do exist for getting the job done for quite a bit cheaper than that, from hiring students, to holding contests, to teaching courses and enlisting volunteers.

Pairing film students and nonprofits

In Vancouver, the Pull Focus film school pairs students with nonprofit organizations that need videos made.

Founder Steve Rosenberg was inspired to start the school — which is itself a nonprofit — when he volunteered in India at an art school for former child labourers. “It was a magical experience for me,” says Rosenberg, and when he returned to Canada, he wanted to find his own way to give back to the local community. A filmmaker by profession, he opened Pull Focus. “I just thought students could come and become filmmakers and connect with other nonprofits,” says Rosenberg.

Pull Focus offers intensive six to eight week courses, as well as smaller one-day workshops. Core subjects include documentary filmmaking, photojournalism, editing and therapeutic storytelling, while workshops cover things like lighting, Photoshop and grant writing. Since opening in December 2009, the school has accommodated almost three hundred students and produced some 30 videos, many of which can be viewed on the school’s YouTube channel.

The school has three streams of filmmaking. The first is a lottery in which nonprofits pay an admin fee of $75 to submit ideas for short films and the students then choose which ones they want to make. In the second, a nonprofit looking to have a video made can sponsor students with scholarships of $1,295 each. The sponsored students learn the filmmaking craft while working on the nonprofit’s video.

These programs have created videos for such organizations as the David Suzuki Foundation and Central City Foundation, which provides services to Vancouver’s inner city.

“The students get a portfolio piece,” says Rosenberg, “and they can say they’ve been part of a national campaign and they’ve learned filmmaking all at the same time.”

In the third stream, nonprofits can hire Pull Focus alumni who are given access to the school’s equipment as well as further coaching from the school’s faculty of industry professionals. Rosenberg hand picks the students for each of these projects. “Prices are always different,” he states. “I would say the cost is $1,500 plus, but it depends on the scope of the project.”

Holding a contest is a win for everyone

Another strategy to generate online video content is to hold a contest. The United Way of the Lower Mainland, in British Columbia, launched the Care to Change Video Competition last March to engage with the online community, especially youth.

“I really feel it is important to engage youth,” says United Way board member Catherine Warren, “specifically using new media where they engage in dialogue and relate to their friends.”

The contest, now closed for submissions, asked youth and adults to submit videos dealing with issues such as bullying, poverty and loneliness as experienced by children and seniors. In August, a shortlist selected by an independent jury will be posted to the contest website, where viewers can vote for their favourites. Winners in a variety of categories will be announced in September, taking home prizes such as professional video equipment, computers and retail store vouchers. Top winners will be screened at this fall’s Vancouver International Film Festival and posted to the nonprofit YouTube channel VISOgive.

Warren says the objective of the contest was to foster dialogue, but she stresses it was important to make sure videos were of a certain standard. “Part of the direction we gave people was to inspire audiences, but to use artistic touches to do that,” she says. “The whole idea was to motivate the audience to act.”

To that end, the contest website offered a Video Toolkit containing links to such things as royalty-free sound effects and music, storyboarding instruction, YouTube’s tutorial page called Creator’s Corner, and a filmmaking workshop.

“We have just been overwhelmed by the content, quality and variety of submissions,” says Warren. The contest generated a total of 70 entries.

Beyond YouTube and the contest website, the finalist videos will also be made available for use by some 1,100 organizations that are part of the United Way’s partner community in the lower mainland. “They represent business, labour, public sector and nonprofits that we support or that support us,” says Warren.

The art of storytelling

Teaching people to make their own videos is the mandate of another organization helping nonprofits generate online content. Digital Storytelling Toronto (DSTO) stages workshops with nonprofits that want to offer people the opportunity tell their stories in a digital format.

“The stories are made by individuals,” says Emmy Pantin, the DSTO’s coordinator, “but most of the work we do is with nonprofits who contract us to come and work for them.”

DSTO’s specialty isn’t strictly video making. In their workshops, they will engage participants to tell stories from their lives and then work with them to shape those stories into scripts to be read over digital presentations of scanned photographs and other graphics to create enhanced slide shows. Music is also added.

“We facilitate a process that teaches people how to manipulate the digital video editor,” says Pantin.

DSTO runs open workshops in their Toronto lab, but can also bring equipment to remote locations. Through various nonprofits they have run workshops with Six Nations elders, queer youth in Sault Ste. Marie, Inuits in Labrador facing global warming, and public housing tenants in Toronto’s Regent Park.

Pantin would not say precisely what a workshop might cost, indicating that the budget can vary according to the scope of the project. “If we are renting equipment and travelling far away, it does change the cost,” she says. “We can work with organizations to find funding.”

Getting a celebrity endorsement

When the budget is almost nonexistent, another strategy for video making is to enlist volunteers — especially famous ones. As part of its 65th anniversary celebrations this October, Ten Thousand Villages will be screening a new video in their stores, on their website and on YouTube.

The nonprofit, which runs 48 stores in Canada dealing in fair trade goods from disadvantaged artisans around the world, had an extremely limited budget for the project, so they introduced value of a different sort by asking celebrities to send 30-second videos of themselves expressing their enthusiasm for Ten Thousand Villages.

Not all those who were asked accepted the invitation, but those who did include bestselling author Miriam Toews, Alberta cowboy poet Doris Daley, rock band The Liptonians, and Steinbach, Manitoba Mayor Chris Goertzen.

“In a way, celebrities do validate you to the general public,” says Ingrid Heinrichs Pauls, the organization’s education and media relations coordinator. “Some of them are very recognizable for their ethical stances. All of them are Ten Thousand Villages shoppers.”

Many of the celebrity statements will be self-recorded, then cut together with other footage and photographs into a cohesive video by volunteer Gabriel Patti, a recent high-school graduate from Hamilton, Ontario, who aspires to be a film director.

“It won’t be terribly slick but it will feel real,” says Heinrichs Pauls, “and it will be a good addition to Gabriel’s portfolio.”

A strong call to action is a must

Regardless of how a nonprofit gets video made, even the strongest message is incomplete without a final component. “Every piece of video should have a call to action,” says Mike Edgell, “so that when people finish watching it they know what to do.”

So plan carefully. Viewers should be able to easily state what a video was about and what it was asking of them. If that response doesn’t happen, the video’s message may not be getting across.

“Video is the most powerful medium,” says Edgell, “but it can harm the impression of an organization if it is not done well.”

Shaun Smith is a journalist and novelist in Toronto. He was co-founder of the literary event series This Is Not A Reading Series, and he has written extensively about books and the publishing industry for such publications as The Toronto Star, Quill & Quire, The Globe & Mail and CBC.ca. His YA novel Snakes & Ladders was published by the Dundurn Group in 2009.

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