Baxter's Lesson: Don't Make Your Nonprofit Videos About Money
Posted by Catie Foertsch on Tue, Nov 24, 2009 @ 07:28 AM
Meet Baxter the therapy dog. This video is all about the service Baxter provides, and it will bring tears to your eyes. As you watch it, notice something else: the video has absolutely nothing in it that has anything to do with raising money - to support Baxter's work or the work of other therapy dogs. There's just Baxter and his incredibly powerful story.
If I had written about making videos that are only about your story - that have absolutely no element of solicitation, explicit or implicit - you may have had doubts. But watching Baxter's video lets you understand what I mean much more clearly.
In a nutshell, human beings love emotionally-powerful stories. Human beings also have a strong dislike for commercials. And for nonprofits, a commercial means asking for money or support.
Because this video is only about Baxter's story, viewers can engage completely. There's no holding back because you get the story but you have to put up with the commercial. The video is, instead, a gift. Viewers don't have to give anything to get the emotional payoff.
Does this mean you can't ever make videos that ask for money? Absolutely not. If your nonprofit doesn't ever ask for money, you can't do the good work you do.
But it's important to understand that when you're thinking about the videos you're making, or are going to make, taking the longer view is a very good idea. Yes, solicitation may bring you some money right now, but constant solicitation trains people to tune you out. And people don't like to send solicitations to their friends.
Giving people videos that are all emotional payoff and no solicitation makes it much more likely that they'll spread your stories to their friends through Facebook and Twitter, and through sending email links to your videos. And when you do ask, those people are more likely to give - and their friends are too.