How to Produce Powerful Charity Fundraising Videos

Video production is perhaps the most powerful medium around for communicating the work of non-profit organisations, but how do you produce a really effective charity fundraising video?

Identify Your Target Audience

Before you start to think about the content of your charity fundraising video, it's absolutely essential you determine exactly who it is aimed at?

Is the video to target people who already support your cause, prospective supporters or even government legislators? What specific demographics do you want to target? Teenagers, young adults, or middle-aged professionals? How far and wide do you want the film to be seen? Is it a local, national or international issue? And most importantly, exactly how do you want your audience to think, feel and act once they have seen your video?

It's crucial that all of these questions are answered and that your objectives are crystal clear, as this is what will determine the kind of video you'll need to commission.

The Content

The key to successful charity fundraising videos is always compelling story-telling.

If the video is to provoke action and inspire change, an audience must be able to make a genuine emotional connection with what they're seeing. Being transparent and demonstrating tangible impact is also crucial. Potential donors will want to see exactly where their hard-earned cash will be going, who it will be spent on and why. It's also useful to substantiate any claims you make with expert opinion.

Duration

The length of your film will of course depend on a number of factors, but less is often more, particularly if you want the video be successful online.

People lead incredibly busy lives in the 21st century and you have to ask yourself how much time you are expecting people to give up to watch your film. You don't want them to switch off before the call to action.

Distribution

Charity marketing videos are incredibly versatile and once produced, can be streamed online, duplicated onto DVDs, used in one-on-one meetings or as part of fundraising presentations and events. For maximum possible exposure, it's very important that you incorporate the video into your organisation's website, preferably with access to it from the homepage.

You should also distribute your video across ALL of your online marketing channels. That means sharing the videos via online networks, video-sharing sites, blogs, Facebook and My Space accounts, where they quickly become part of larger online discussions, commented upon by multitudes of online viewers.

There's even a special section on YouTube dedicated to non-profits which includes enhanced promotion and a direct fundraising option via Google Checkout. A number of sites are also emerging that specifically host fundraising videos and when used in tandem with these sites, charity fundraising videos can be an exceptionally powerful medium for conveying the importance of any cause.

Although fundraising videos can be produced in-house using consumer camcorders and basic editing software, for a fundraising film with real impact it's always best to work with an experienced video production company who can get the best out of contributors and tell a truly emotive, visual story.