Speaking of “pulling back the curtain,” behind the scenes videos are a great way for nonprofits to use video marketing because they help put the inner workings of your organization on display. Instead of focusing on the people behind your nonprofit, you’re focusing on the cultural aspects that drive it. Try bringing a camera along to a meeting or a local community event to capture footage that highlights what your nonprofit is all about. This can help your audience begin to better understand both your values and your mission.

Knox Studio, a Seattle based nonprofit film studio, has a great behind the scenes example:

It’s one thing for you to say that your organization is dedicated to making a positive impact. It’s another thing entirely to show it (and let someone that isn’t on your payroll tell that story in their own words). Video testimonials can be a great way for nonprofits to show off the real, tangible impact they’re making. Perhaps the people you serve have successes to share, or your volunteers want to talk about why they partner with your organization – testimonials let them tell your story in their own words. 

In this video by The Boys & Girls Club of America, Brandon shares his story:

Before someone is willing to support a nonprofit, they usually want to make sure the people behind that nonprofit actually know what they’re talking about. If they can’t trust your intelligence, they won’t be able to trust where their donation money is going either. Interview videos are a great way to establish your organization as an authority. You could choose to sit down and interview someone your audience already knows (like a fellow nonprofit leader, an author or some type of local figure) or someone they don’t know but would enjoy learning more about. As long as your questions are insightful, your audience should be able to take away some key piece of information they didn’t have at the beginning.

AARP has a perfect example of how effective and engaging interview videos can be:

Everyone knows that your mission is important – but at the end of the day, it’s still being furthered by real people who are just like each and every one of us. If you want to attach a little bit of that personality to your video marketing, vlogs can be a perfect choice. A vlog (otherwise known as a video blog) usually takes the form of a diary-style experience where one person sits and talks into a camera. You could have some of your employees take a camera for a few hours and talk about the work they’re doing in real-time. You could even go in the complete opposite direction, having them talk about what they like to do when they’re not in the office or on the weekend.

The major benefit here, of course, is one of personality. The more your audience members start to see you as real people, the more likely they are to emotionally attach themselves to your nonprofit. At that point, they’ll become more invested in your mission and more invested in YOU.

For example, The Salvation Army USA used this format to share quick updates on the gulf coast flood:

One of the biggest mistakes that nonprofits can make when it comes to video marketing involves crafting a video strategy that isn’t properly aligned with A) their own long-term goals as an organization, and B) the audience they’re supposed to be speaking to. Because of that, you need to start by asking yourself the following questions:

The answer to the first question will inform the type of video you choose and the answer to the second question will inform what you actually do with the medium itself once you fire up that video camera and get to work.

One of the great things about OTT media content like videos, is that it lives on in perpetuity. Yes, it will have an immediate short-term impact on your nonprofit’s campaign, but once it’s online that video will essentially “exist” forever. So before you create any piece of content, you need to think about two things:

The best video content for nonprofits is evergreen, meaning that it has a message strong enough to be just as effective six months or even a year from now as it does today. If you created a video with the goal of driving people to your website, it should always do that. But this isn’t going to happen automatically – this long-term approach needs to be baked into the very DNA of your video, and that isn’t going to be possible if you don’t consider the long-term goals from the moment of its conception.

Finally, you need to make sure you’re practicing one of the most important rules of not just video marketing, but marketing in general: consistency and continuity. Every piece of collateral that you create – be it a video, blog post, or direct mail piece – needs to feel like it’s coming from the exact same place. If you use graphics, make sure they’re similar to the ones you’re using on your website. Pay close attention to the language and the tone of voice you choose to use in your script and make sure it aligns with your copy elsewhere.

If you do this properly, people will start to get a very distinct impression of not just your nonprofit, but the hardworking men and women behind it. The more positive and consistent that impression is, the more likely they’ll be to take your desired action and help you further the cause.