Social enterprise seems to be getting more and more mainstream coverage in 2010. This series of films by business guru Alvin Hall makes very interesting viewing for anyone looking to use online video to promote their social enterprise.
In programme one Alvin visited Riders for Health in Zambia to learn how they’re using motorbikes to transform Africa’s health system. This week he focused on IDE-India’s work on sustainable agriculture in Maharashtra.
In coming weeks Alvin’s travels take him to organisations such as Kiva, Camfed and Apopo, a social enterprise that uses detection rat technology for humanitarian purposes!
Engaging, informative content is only one element of what makes a successful online video - how you get that video seen is just as important. Getting your videos up on your website is a great start, but video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo have much greater traffic and better search functions than your own website is likely to have, so why not take advantage of these free-to-use distribution channels too?
They run a YouTube channel with over 70 videos covering many different aspects of social enterprise, all of which support them in their main mission to invest in, celebrate and connect social entrepreneurs across the world. They have had nearly 50,000 channel views since they launched in 2007, with some individual clips being watched by almost 20,000 people. Content is divided into different categories to tie in with the many initiatives the Foundation is involved in, so users can select to view only films related to the Skoll World Forum, or the Skoll Awards, for example.
The films are well promoted on the main Skoll Foundation website, either as embedded YouTube videos or with links back to the YouTube channel. It seems they haven’t posted any videos to their Facebook group page and I couldn’t see any updates promoting new content on their Twitter channel, but otherwise, this is a great example of how non-profits can use video-sharing sites to spread their messages.
If you are a US or UK-based charity, you might want to take advantage of YouTube’s free Non-profit Programme which helps charities set up web TV channels to promote themselves and raise funds. This video explains a bit more about it all.
Look out for number four in the series soon when we’ll be looking at a video by the World Wildlife Fund and how they’ve used GreenTV to share it with their audience.
Divine are a social enterprise rather than a strict nonprofit, but I love this simple animation so it’s made it onto the list anyway. It’s charming, fits in nicely with Divine’s branding and tells their story in only 32 seconds - perfect for web TV! I’ve seen Divine’s CEO Sophi Tranchell speaking in public a few times and she uses this video to kick off her presentation to great effect.
Animation is a great way to communicate your key offering quickly and imaginatively. It can also help in getting statistical information across to people, as an engaging alternative to dry print reports or Powerpoint presentations.
Divine’s film has been viewed over 10,000 times on their YouTube channel. They promote the channel from the “get involved” page of their website and they also have Twitter and Facebook pages. They’ve missed a trick by not putting the video up on their Facebook page, but otherwise this is a really good example of how to communicate the story behind a social enterprise through video.
Next up in our nonprofitwebtelly series I’ll be looking at how the Skoll Foundation is using YouTube as an online social enterprise video library..
2009 has seen massive growth in online video, and with production kit now more consumer-friendly than ever, there’s never been a better time for nonprofits to experiment with video.
Having spent the last couple of months working on these two videos to promote Tower Hamlets-based charity City Gateway (Bringing hope to Tower Hamlets and Volunteering at City Gateway) I thought I’d take a look at what else is out there in the world of nonprofit webtelly.
Next month, we’ll be creating a guide to online video production for nonprofits, but to get your creative juices flowing, here’s part one of our roundup of some of the best videos on the net from charities and social enterprises.
First up, this promo film from Social Enterprise London. It’s creative, says exactly what SEL is about, and they’ve done a good job of getting it seen by putting it up on a dedicated SEL YouTube channel. My only criticisms are that at 6 mins long, it’s verging on an epic in webtelly terms, and the YouTube version is in the wrong aspect ratio so it appears a wee bit squished..
Are you a nonprofit with an interesting video that you think should be in my list? Have you seen a good nonprofit video on your travels around the net? I’d love to hear about it so drop me a line.
Only about three weeks to go until the Useful Visitors website is launched. We’re building an online community for the volunteering sector using open source social networking platform Elgg - so far we’ve been really impressed with what it can do.
Pretty much any social networking function that you can imagine is catered for, from the basics of creating a profile or sharing photos and videos, to more recent developments such as Twitter-style micro-blogging. And because it’s all built around an open source community, there are new plugins being developed all the time that mean we can continue to build on what we develop in phase one.
Useful Visitors is a web-based volunteering service that matches business travellers with host organisations in the developing world. See their coverage at Social Innovation Camp Dec 2008 for more info..
