Securing funding and networking are among the top challenges for NGOs and charities. After all, your organization won’t exist without money.

Yet, according to well-known activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta, non-profit organizations are often criticized for spending too much money on advertising and marketing. While people don’t want their donations going to advertising, it can have great ROI and has the potential to bring in much more money than invested to help the cause. In the end, the results far outweigh the cost.

With limited resources (small budgets and understaffed), NGOs and charities often struggle to get the word out, but it’s critical to their success. This is where the power of video comes into play.

Videos are one of the best marketing tools for NGOs/charities. Video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year, according to Aberdeen, And 90% of customers say video helps them making buying Decisions (Forbes), and what’s a donation except for another type of purchase.

The key is having the ability to create professional-quality videos. A video creation platform enables non-profits with limited resources to create emotionally moving and inspiring videos in-house to help raise awareness for their cause without having to increase their marketing budget or staff.

How Videos Help Crowdfunding/Fundraising Campaigns

But before we get into how to use video marketing effectively for your charity or NGO, first we need to talk about exactly how videos can help you raise more money. It’s all about creating strong videos that transform potential donors into actual donors—57% of people who view non-profit videos proceed to make a donation.

To get this result, your video needs to tell a story. People want to know who they are donating to, where their money is being used, and why it matters. Videos are the best visual medium for storytelling. They allow you to use music, images, text, and clips to succinctly make your point and ask for viewer involvement.

Aside from raising funds, videos can also help with networking and volunteer recruitment—another one of the greatest challenges nonprofits face, as reflected in the Nonprofit Financial Priorities Benchmark 2018 Survey. An effective video will help raise awareness for your cause and all of your needs, which means you can use it to call for volunteers and share how they can make an impact.

But how exactly can videos do all this good for your charity and NGO? First, you need to develop a clear video marketing strategy.

How to Develop a Clear Video Marketing Strategy for your NGO/Charity

72% of NGOs in the 164 countries surveyed felt video was an effective communication and fundraising tool for NGOs according to the 2018 Global NGO Technology report. Despite a limited budget, NGOs and charities can still build an effective video marketing strategy by focusing on the fundamentals:

• Designating a marketing team
• Defining your buyer
• Creating a content plan
• Tailoring your videos to the various platforms
• Assessing your video marketing strategy on a regular basis and making adjustments as needed.

How to Create Effective Charity/NGO Videos

Now that you have a clear video marketing strategy, it’s time to get down to work and start creating your videos. The key is to set yourself apart from the crowd by using video to tell your story in a unique and interesting way. Doing this, according to Kickstarter’s research, will increase your rate of funding by 50%. That’s because:

• Videos help you convey large amounts of information quickly.
• More consumers watch videos than read a blog or article.
• Digital marketing expert James McQuivey estimates that a single minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million words.

To get these results, here are a few best practices for producing effective charity videos.

And don’t be afraid to learn from other nonprofit organizations who are already using video to achieve great results. Just take a look at these 5 examples of nonprofit videos and all they do correctly. They expertly use emotion, surprise, intrigue, music, and visuals to get their points across and encourage viewers to take action.

As for what to do with these videos once you have them, they can be used on your landing pages, social media, sent out in email blasts, and more. Wherever and however you decide to reach out to your audience, a video has its place. Just make sure the video you use matches the goal of the platform you use for distribution.

For example, a mission statement video that outlines who you are, your goals, mission, and vision would probably work better on social media than it would on email.

Final Thoughts

Videos can be a powerful crowdfunding and networking tool for your NGO/charity. Thanks to their viral nature, you can create a video that has a real impact on your audience and reaches far more individuals than a blog or email. Video is also an incomparable outlet for creating emotion-driven sales, which is key for every non-profit.

Just remember, if you’re feeling overwhelmed with the idea of adding a video marketing strategy on top of your workload, a video creation platform can help. The right platform offers a library of visual and audio content, and makes creation, editing, and distributing your video as easy as a few clicks.

Ready to start making videos that make an impact? Contact Wochit today to get started!