April 18, 2011
The tsunami in Japan was a catastrophe. My friend Mike Rogers, who lives in Tokyo, is working with some other people to offer aid to the victims.
They have produced a video. They had good intentions, but as a fundraiser, it will not work.
So, as a favor to him, the victims, and maybe even you, I am going to show what the group could do to make the video work. It needs editing.
You can follow along. At the end of this report, you will know how to produce a low-cost fundraising video.
I ran a non-profit outfit from 1975-2001. I donated 30 hours a week to it. I raised the money, wrote the ads, wrote the materials, and published dozens of books. I did not get paid. So, I know what needs to be done.
This project is simple to outline, because it had a single cause: a tsunami that got worldwide attention. But now it's off the front pages. The hard slogging begins. Raising money gets more difficult.
The basic relief strategy already exists, as the video shows. This makes things much easier for designing the fundraising video.
The goal is clear: to get people to donate money. This should be in at least four ranges: $25, $100, $250, $1,000. Each donation should produce a specific relief response: so much food, or whatever. So, a person knows what his -- probably her -- donation will buy.
The donations must be tax-deductible in the United States.
Who is the target donor? If it is an individual, it will be a woman age 45-60. If it is an institution, it may be a church or a service institution that the viewer belongs to. I recommend this the latter target: institutional.
The videos (plural) should lead to a viewer to send a link to the first video to friends, but especially to people she knows in organizations that give charitable donations.
The video should focus on families. It needs interviews with mothers. Her young children must be visible nearby. Grandparents are OK for interviewing, as long as the grandkids are visible.
The video should show that children are the primary victims. The money donated will help parents help their children.
It's OK to interview someone who works locally with families with children, as long as 100% of the money donated to the outfit gets to the families.
The first video must not exceed three minutes. It should begin with the Tsunami, then the visible devastation. The existing video has plenty of "footage." It needs to be spliced in earlier: at the beginning of the video.
There should be images of children in need. One interview of one mother with kids will help the video.
This presents the problem. Then there should be brief descriptions of the program: small trucks taking food, and food being handed out. This tells the viewer that the program is already delivering aid.
Strategy: crisis and response. Big crisis, minimal response . . . so far. The response can be much grater.
The video ends with a call-out (pop-up): "For details on this program and how you can help, click here."
This takes the viewer to another, longer YouTube video. YouTube allows live links to another YouTube video.
The first video should end by directing people to a website, which explains what they can do and how they can donate.
The second video adds a couple of interviews of people who have been helped. It should have more information on what needs to be done. How big is this problem? Give them some idea. What can be done, family by family? Show this.
The goal here is to convince people to donate even more money. It offers evidence that this money will not be wasted, that children will be helped. This video should be no longer than 10 minutes, unless the interviews are really gripping. It must focus on immediacy: money donated will get help to needy children within a week . . . or whatever time it will take.
Here is the strategy:
1. Have a specific action step.
2. Create a site to enable volunteers to take this step.
3. Make the step easy: one click.
4. Create a two-step video to get viewers to the site.
5. The first video should demonstrate the magnitude of the problem,.
6. It should identify the most vulnerable victims.
7. It should show that there is a real-world relief program.
8. It should offer a live link to a longer video.
9. It should end with a page inviting people to the donors' website.
10. It should ask them to forward the link.
Follow-up videos are good. For this, set up a free YouTube channel. Learn how to do this here:
Each video can be embedded on a page on the site. The more pages, the higher the Google ranking.
With this in mind, watch the video produced by Mike Rogers' friends. You will see the problem and a little of the solution, but the action step is unclear. It is also too long.
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