Board Diversity Impacts ROI

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It’s hardFoliage as Shapes - IMG_0052 s.c to find an organization today that’s not focused on, or at least giving lip service to, diversity. But have you ever considered the cost to your organization of not having a diverse leadership team? When Catalyst first came out with their study about the ROI for investors of companies with more diverse boards, many were surprised. But the numbers were clear: Return on Equity, Return on Sales and Return on Invested Capital were all significantly higher (53%, 42% and 66% respectively) for companies with more women on their boards.

The same is true for nonprofit boards.  Boards lacking diversity can make poor financial decisions, such as investing the bulk of their endowment with an investment manager  “everyone knows.” Boards lacking diversity can miss big opportunities to reach new communities and new donors. They can miss out on creating new partnerships.

So how can you create a more diverse board?

First, let’s define diversity. When I meet with boards on this topic, everyone’s first instinct is to think ethnicity and gender. These are important. But just as vital to decision-making are having people of diverse ages, life experiences, socio-economic backgrounds, family structures, and more.

Range of Ages. The most common lack of diversity I see on boards is related to age. And the most common form of ageism I see is against younger people (which on boards tends to mean under- 35). Yet the views of the 18-35 set, and their facility with the internet and social media tools, makes them especially valuable on boards.

Varied Life Experiences. Another area where boards often lack diversity is in life experiences. That’s because so many people are recruited to boards by friends, business associates or college/grad school classmates. So if you have one corporate lawyer on your board, you’re likely to have two or more. That’s not to say anything against lawyers, but there is also diversity among types of legal expertise and it could benefit your board to have more than one kind. Life experiences also include living overseas, blended families, military families, LGBT, and religious background.

Personal Attributes. A third area for boards to focus on when attaining diversity is a mix of personal styles and personality attributes. Even if you’re board is every color of the rainbow, if every person on it is a forceful leader, you’re going to have trouble filling your committees. By the same token, if everyone is a quiet, behind-the-scenes type of operator, you’ll have trouble finding committee chairs every year. You need a mix of several personality types to make a board fully functional.

Varied Connections. Finally, board diversity requires diverse community connections. One of the most overlooked areas for recruiting board members is among the clergy. Rabbis, priests, and ministers tend to know a lot of people in their communities, as well as other organizations that are making a difference there. That makes them great “connectors” to have on your board, irrespective of whether your organization has a religious mission. Other great connectors are people who volunteer in communities in which your organization wants to reach. And also don’t overlook individuals who serve on national boards, where they make contacts all across the country.

Tapping diverse talents always leads to a stronger board. And a stronger board helps you avoid costly mistakes and deliver on your bottom line: the mission.

Amy DeLouise is a video producer/director and consultant who works primarily with nonprofits and their leadership teams.

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4 Ways to Keep Restricted Gifts From Killing Your Mission and Brand

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Every fundraiser should cringe when offered a restricted gift. Sweet Briar College found out the hard way.
$56M out of their $84M endowment is restricted. That’s  2/3 of its endowment, but even more if you consider past, present and future earnings on those funds.  And so it makes sense that the recent reprieve for the women’s college, which was about to shutter its doors, included an effort to waive some of those limitations. 
Restrictions are popular with donors. Who wants to give millions for playing fields and find out they’ve been used to renovate the cafeteria? But the overarching driver should be delivering on mission. And tying the hands of leadership in making decisions for today’s students/patients/recipents etc. can, in fact, compromise the overall mission.
Of course, many donors have personal projects that motivate them to give. And tapping into those interests is part of Fundraising 101. But even when donors have the institution’s mission at  heart, changing times and future needs are hard to plan for–in Sweet Briar’s case, many gifts were made over 100 years ago.
So how can a nonprofit institution ensure that funds raised today support the mission tomorrow?
1. Pose the What If’s. When speaking to a donor interested in a restricted gift, offer some examples of unforseen, mission-focused challenges. Use examples from other segments of the sector: Food banks once conceived to serve the urban poor are rethinking how to feed suburban underserved populations. Girls schools are grappling with how to meet the needs of transgender students. Pediatric hospitals are figuring out how to serve HIV survivors now in their twenties and thirties. Environmental groups focused on once endangered species are now pivoting to tackle the massive implications of global climate change.
2. Be Proactive. Board leaders need to think ahead by staying engaged with donors. Before a donor becomes elderly or infirm, they should discuss how restrictions can be eased to support original intent (as tied to mission) without limiting opportunities (the vision for the future of the nonprofit).
3. “Self Insure”. If a substantial gift is permanently restricted due to the donor being deceased, the financial leadership should target raising a percentage of that base gift every year to “insure” the institution against too much imbalance in the portfolio, much like they already adjust the balance in stock, bond or real estate holdings.
4. Just Say No. Occasionally, institutions have bravely declined large gifts, because they knew the restrictions could substantively alter their brand for decades to come.
Restricted gifts can be a godsend. But they can also kill your nonprofit brand, which means how you deliver on the mission for those you serve. Hopefully Sweet Briar’s experience will be a shoot across the bow for any other nonprofits–not just colleges–with too much restricted giving putting their mission at risk.

Amy DeLouise works with nonprofits on telling their mission story through video and other content. She has chaired nonprofit finance comittees and knows what it’s like to be responsible, as a volunteer board member working with staff, for overseeing endowment finances.

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Hacking Video in 10 Essential Steps

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AmyDirectsTalentSo you want to make a video for your company or nonprofit. You may want to capture a particular event or person on camera. But what’s next? Actually, a lot comes first, before the shoot ever happens. Let’s break it down into all the steps that go into production. Then you can decide which parts you want to manage yourself. And you’ll understand the workflow if you decide you want to team up with a Producer or Production Company to help you.

Step 1. Define the Goal. Wasn’t it Yogi Berra who famously said “if you don’t know where you’re going, you probably won’t get there”? So knowing what you want to shoot is great, but if you don’t know WHY, and what kind of outcome you want for your production, you might miss your mark. Do people need to learn a key skill from this video? Do they need to get motivated to take action on a social or political cause? Do they need to feel good about their new company? Buy something? Attend your big event? Knowing your goal here is essential to how you design the video, but also how you measure success afterwards.

Step 2. Define the Audience. Success will rely partly on knowing your target audience. And please don’t say “everyone.” Have you noticed how many cable channels there are? And how about YouTube channels? We don’t live in a one size fits all world. Take advantage of that, and determine who you want to reach—age, demographics, viewing habits, and what information they bring to your subject matter. You might end up shooting 3 different versions of your show for those different audience segments.

Step 3. Consider the Viewing Environment. Are folks going to watch this video on their laptops? In a busy office environment? At a training session? At a purchase counter? On a noisy trade show floor? Gathered together with thousands of other activists for your cause? The viewing environment—the “envelope” as I like to call it—matters a lot. It helps determine length, emotional content, style, sound design, and many other factors. In addition to thinking about where people will view your video, this step is vital in determining your output specs. And output specs will influence your shooting specs. If I know something needs to be very high quality, on a big screen, I might shoot it in 4K or higher. If it could air on broadcast, we need to shoot interlace. If it will never be seen on anything other than the web, I might acquire footage in 1080p. All of these decisions need to be made up front by you, typically with the Director and Producer, in consultation with the Editor.

Step 4. Hire the Production Team. Pulling together the right team—for writing, directing, shooting, sound, editing, graphics design, sound design—is a key step. You might decide to do all of this coordination and management work yourself, or hire and direct a crew and editor you’ve worked with before. Or you may hire a Video Producer. She has a rolodex of folks she’s worked with, or perhaps a production company, who work as a team every day.

Step 5. Define Creative Concept and Budget. OK, Now that you know Why, Who and Where, you can start thinking about How and How Much. How will you best connect with this audience? Does this need to be fast-paced? Funny? Dramatic? Documentary style? Will the end product need to be less than 90 seconds long, for web viewing? Can it be longer–more like a brief news package (2-3 mins)—for group viewing? You’ll want to develop a creative treatment and maybe a few storyboards, so you have a sense of how things will look, and how much they will cost. You’ll also need these documents for internal approvals before moving forward with production. Here’s where a Scriptwriter and Creative Director can be helpful to your project. They have loads of experience developing concepts that are creative, but also achievable. Cost drivers will include schedule (is this a rush project?), how many shooting and editing days, and complexity of the concept.

So how about cost? People used to define video budgets in terms of “cost per finished minute.” I think it’s more useful to consider cost-per-impression. If your video costs $10,000 and reaches 20,000 people live and online, that’s 50 cents per impression. If those people go out and raise $4 million for your cause because the video helped inspire them, that’s a pretty cost-effective outcome. If your video costs $40,000 and reaches 2,500 people worldwide in online training sessions, that’s a cost of $16 per person. If you would normally spend $150 per person to send trainers to multiple locations, then you have saved yourself a bundle. So you need to know from Step 1 what the goal is, and whether this cost is justified. There is also a direct relationship between cost and quality, there’s no getting around that. Some situations do not merit a full-scale production. You may be able to get away with recording someone with an iPhone. That’s another cost-benefit analysis you need to make when weighing your options.

Step 6. Plan the Shoot. The shoot takes 10% of the time spent a given production, but it’s the part everyone thinks about most. Typically, the Director will work with the Producer and the Writer to develop a shot list. These could be very scripted scenes, or more documentary style “we hope to get this” kind of scenes. If it’s the latter type of shoot, be aware that you won’t get everything you dreamed of. But you might get some cool stuff you didn’t even imagine. If you think you might need footage for multiple platforms or purposes, it’s a good idea to bake this into your shoot plan and schedule. It will take more time and money, but save substantially on the back end.

Step 7. Tag and Digitize Footage. This step is usually done by the Producer with the Editor. It’s a time-consuming but vital process for reviewing, prioritizing and organizing all your content–footage, photographs, logos, audio, music–in a digital Nonlinear Editing System so that you can use it now and in the future. Make sure the tags are something that would make sense to someone not intimately involved in the project. So don’t label a shot “MS w JJ.” Label it “Marilyn Smith CEO _ Jarvis Jackson CFO”.

Step 8. Editing. Footage editing typically goes through several rounds. The first round—the rough-cut—might be done with only temporary or “scratch” VO and music. Later rounds will include professionally recorded voiceover, if that’s the style of piece you’ve planned, plus music that the Producer needs to license for your specific usage. Even stock music has a license, and YouTube will pull your video down if you can’t demonstrate that you have it. I tend to go through about 4 rounds of edit drafts: a rough cut for only internal folks to comment on, a finer rough cut for their bosses or decision makers to comment on, and then two rounds of final refinements for graphics, audio, narration and music. A sub-step of editing is graphics—whether simple text or more complex animation. If you have a million shots from various sources, you’re also going to need a color-correction step so it looks like a unified piece. The same goes for audio—an audio mixing session will help even out interviews or other audio from multiple sources.

Step 9. Compressions. In the world we live in, there are many platforms and many output specs. Hopefully you already figured out what you needed in Step 3.  My clients usually need several different compressions for projects—one version for Vimeo, another for YouTube, and another for a live event projection system.

Step 10. Future Proofing. Be sure you archive all your edit media—you’d be surprised how often you’ll need to go back for shots and use them in another production. Back up your project files. And be sure you also output one master file, at the highest possible resolution such as ProRes 4444, as well as a version with separated audio tracks, so that you can always go back in and reversion as needed in the future.

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5 Ways to Close the Gender Gap in Media and Tech

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GendergapTweetI’m not a hand-wringer. Neither are most women in TV/film/media production. We’re do-ers. That’s how we got into this business in the first place. At NABShow, the annual conference of the broadcast and media production industry that draws 100,000 to Vegas (and about 85,000 of the attendees are men), I was privileged to moderate a panel on the subject of closing the gender gap in production. The panel included Ellen Wixted, Adobe; Siân Fever, Editor (UK) and GBFTE Governor; Megan McGough Christian, WGBH; and Kylee Wall, Editor and blogger on Creative Cow –who pushed to have the panel be part of the event.  You can watch the whole discussion here:

Special thanks to Creative Cow, Adobe and FMC, who supported and publicized this effort, and helped to make it a priority in an industry event known for, well, a lot of “Vegas booth babes.” Prior to the event, we pulled together some dismal statistics across the industry. But we also talked about solutions. I was thrilled by the number of men in the packed room, the number of millennials ready to tackle this challenge, and the interesting and continued commentary online afterwards (primarily on Twitter—see #postgendergap).  Please pass the link along and share your solutions using the #postgendergap hashtag.

Here are some of the simple ideas we proposed, plus a few more I’ve thought of since:

  1. Take Names Off Resumes. All of us have bias, and it’s not just gender-related. So give yourself and your company the advantage of finding the best person for the job by removing bias in the hiring process. There’s all kinds of data to back this up, by the way. A University of Melbourne study  showed that people with “simple” names were promoted more easily. In other words, people with less ethnic-sounding names. A University of Ohio study showed that women with more feminine sounding names had less career success in traditionally male jobs. And a Wharton study using mock email addresses with 6,500 professors at 259 top US universities found them more likely to meet with and mentor students with white male names.
  2. Promote Young Women for Potential. A 2011 McKinsey report—famously quoted by Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In–showed that men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on performance.  This means young women get shut out of the tech leadership pipeline more quickly than their male counterparts. We know that is true, because the statistics on gender in film schools is about even. Yet 10 years out, women only hold 17% of the industry jobs. We also know from the recent Women in Film/Sundance study that men and women win awards at film festivals at an equal rate, yet men are offered their first major directing gig by big studios afterwards, and women are not. In other words, men are snapped up for their directing potential. You can change that, by seeing the potential in a young woman behind the camera, or in another “technical” job, and help her climb that ladder. Oh, and if you are posting a job for Director of Photography, please ask for a DoP and not a “cameraman.”
  3. Promote Experienced Men and Women Based on Performance not Style. Once we get into the higher ranks of leadership, the tables turn. The very leadership qualities that make someone effective—being bold, being assertive—are often held against women. Women need to be more choosy about when they are assertive, or they will be perceived as not team players at best, b*tches, or worse.  As an employer you can change this by promoting women and men for the job they accomplish. Period. On the flip side, if you are a woman, you’re going to need to be more assertive about asking for more pay. But somehow do it in a way that isn’t b*tchy Hmm. This strikes me as forcing women into some kind of no-win situation regarding what kind of “style” they will present in the workplace. So how about promoting based on performance?
  4. Hand Out Clean-Up Jobs Equally. Invite Women to the Party. Study after study has shown that women tend to be asked to get coffee and clean up after meetings, no matter what their role. It’s easy to change this. Post a sign in the office kitchen: “This week’s kitchen boss is…Bob” and rotate among all your employees equally.  The flip side of this coin is making sure women int he office are invited to after-hours happy hours and meetups the same way men are. Only then can they be seen as colleagues and friends, and develop personal relationships with mentors.
  5. Put Women on Stage. At conference after conference that I attend in the tech and media industries, there is just one token woman on the stage as a speaker. Surely we can find more women for these high visibility posts? Conference planners, look for women to speak. And reach out to groups like Innovation Women, which offers a women-in-tech speakers bureau. We’re out here. So the onus is on you to change the balance on stage at your next event.

Amy DeLouise is a multi-media director, producer, speaker and author in the media/content industry. She’s happy to bring everyone coffee on the set, as long as someone invites her to the happy hour after the shoot.

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4 Things Movie Producers Know That Will Change Your Business

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Lynda2AmyWhen my carpet installers failed to show yesterday due to a broken-down truck, I thought, “this would never happen on a movie.” That’s because our industry lives and breathes by what is a relatively new idea in other lines of work: “supply chain management.” This is defined on Wikipedia as “getting the right product into the right consumer’s hands in the right quantity at the right time.” Basically, ensuring everyone—employees and vendors—who have anything to do with your brand relationships has skin in the game and a reason to deliver high quality every time. Skip the MBA. Here are four things we do in video production that you can apply Right Now to making your business or nonprofit enterprise more successful.

1. Hire a Smart PA. Or Two. “Find a Way or Make One” was the motto of my high school, and is the guiding mantra for any PA (production assistant) in the video, TV or movie biz.  If my carpet installation was a movie, we would have instantly deployed a PA to the broken-truck-guy’s house to drive him to a U-Haul store and rent a truck for the day. Problem solved. Customer happy. I have deployed PA’s to buy a camera-friendly tie for a CEO’s on-camera appearance, to pick up replacements for gear that has failed, or to drive a client to the airport when her time is of the essence. Once, back when I was a PA, I figured out how to ship and install thousands of pounds of rubber matting on the bottom of the Washington Monument reflecting pool so Important Actors (aka Tom Hanks and Robin Wright) wouldn’t slip in a scene there. So make a small investment in a few young, smart, problem-solvers. People who can research, find answers, are unafraid to use the telephone, and know how to build personal relationships. Don’t worry if they don’t have specific skills for your enterprise–those can be learned on the job. The goal is to ensure your business can deliver on customer promises.

2. Invest in Creative Thinking. Problem-solving is all about looking at issues from a new perspective. There’s a lot of talk about why we need more training in STEM. That’s great. But science and math also need creative thinking to discover new inventions, new drugs, new ways to power cars or fly through space. Steven Hawking understood this when he suggested that we need to put smart people (well, actually he said brilliant people) together in inspiring and creative intellectual environments, where they can go do their best thinking. Again, in the movie biz, we work in teams of incredibly smart, creative, people, who all pull together to solve some interesting problems in pursuit of creating a compelling story.  Build teams who care about your brand story, and the brand stories of your customers. Give them the inspiration to do their best work. Give them the license to fail and try again.

3. Invest in Creative Spaces. Tech firms in Silicon Valley have forged their businesses on this model, and also led the way in building creative physical spaces to inspire collaboration and thinking. Now corporations and nonprofits are following suit. Here are some great examples. Production companies have always built creative spaces for their teams. Wall colors are less monotonous. Graphics suites have walls filled with inspiring designs. Employees and clients share meals during shooting breaks in the studio. Folks lounge on cushy chairs in a casual give-and-take environment while edits render. I think this is why so many of my clients like to come hang out with me during edit sessions. It’s a nice break from the Land of Grey Cubicles. But don’t be fooled by the fun stuff–I do a lot of my best writing work alone, in a room with a door.  Build a creative space for your creative thinkers. Use color. Use light. Create spaces that are both private and quiet (for brainstorming) and large and open (for group collaboration). Use chalkboard paint so people can draw what they think.

4. Focus on Outcomes. When people get stuck on process, it’s usually because they’re not focused on the final outcome. In movies, we have storyboards. They help guide our thinking, so everyone can visualize the outcome of a scene. That doesn’t mean we can’t rethink a camera set-up, or rework a sequence in the final edit. But it does give everyone a shared vision of the goal. Every business can build its own storyboards for What Success Looks Like on This Project. And because your team of creative thinkers are probably visual learners, that storyboard posted across your new, colorful walls, will inspire them to new heights.

Amy DeLouise is a video producer, writer, blogger, speaker and author, appearing soon at #NABShow. She is still waiting for her new carpet to be installed.

 

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Brand Resolutions for the New Year

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Sky at Sunset Who doesn’t want to polish up their brand for the New Year? Here are five issues and strategies to consider for your brand this year.

 1. Storytelling Still Matters. As more and more channels and platforms emerge, a compelling story remains the reason users/viewers stage engaged. Whether you are telling a story with info graphics, with photography, with words or with video, make the story Matter.

2. Beware of New Algorithms.   Gmail’s new message organization system is having a big impact on brands who drive customer and donor engagement through email campaigns (i.e. pretty much everyone). Be sure your writing and images (that will be pulled up in Highlights) help users decide your content is relevant to their lives.

2. Get Leadership Engaged in Social Media. Gone are the days when the intern writes your tweets. Customers and donors expect to a personalized experience with your brand’s leadership–whether that is blog posts, tweets or photos on Instagram.  Let the Thought Leaders in your institution–your C-Suite team and your Board leaders–have human personalities, and authentic voices.

3. Ask Movers and Shakers for Brand Mentions. The tweet is the modern equivalent of getting an autograph, but more useful for your brand. When one of my nonprofit clients gave a facility tour to Justin Bieber (and encouraged him to tweet about it, which he did), they got 10,000 new followers in a matter of hours. Find out if any key personalities, well-connected customers or donors might be willing to give your brand a shout-out.

4. Location-Based Content is Here to Stay. iHookupSocial.com and yikyak are the latest spawn of location-based apps. While their purpose is different than Foursquare, the motivation is the same–users want content that relates to where they are right at this moment. Think about how your brand can deliver this content in new ways for users–(re)think conference and events, sightseeing in a town, touring a college campus, and more.

Amy is a video content director/producer,  speaker and author who mainly cares about telling great stories.

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Rebrand U: 5 Ways to Revitalize Your Career

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Amy DeLouise Workshop

Amy gives a workshop on personal branding.

Forget the gym, it’s time to put your personal brand in workout mode! As the     economy picks up steam, you might considering a career move. Or, the kids are grown and you’re getting back into the workforce. Or, you’re  ready for the next step in your current career track. Whatever the motivation, here are 5 things I found helpful–plus a few updates–when I repositioned my own brand a few years ago.

1. List Your Success Qualities. A resume is more than a boring list of skills. The personal qualities that make you good at what you do are what employers (and clients) look for even more. So whether or not you’re currently in a job you plan to keep on doing, think about what qualities allow you to succeed. Here are some examples: stick-to-it-iveness, loyalty, team-builder, team leader, calm under pressure, strategic thinker, behind-the-scenes organizer, detail person, etc. Put your list together, then define–on a piece of paper, even!–exactly how these qualities can apply to the new job or career path you’re interested in.

2. Develop Personal Examples. When I was an employer, I used the “STAR” method to seek out these qualities in prospective employees, asking them to give me examples of a challenging Situation, what Tasks they determined needed to be accomplished to resolve the situation, what specific Actions they took, and what was the Result or outcome of their actions. As a prospective employee, or someone looking to re-position, you’ll need to show how your qualities can help you–and your employer–succeed. Examples of past performance are a great way to demonstrate your value.

3. Practice a (New) Elevator Pitch. When people ask “what do you do?” make sure you incorporate what you Want to be Doing, not just what you currently do. So, you could answer “I’m a graphic designer specializing in animation, and I’m transitioning from corporate training to broadcast design.” OR “I’m the Executive Manager of a family of six, and I’m putting my organizational ninja skills to work as an educational administrator.” Even if you have not arrived yet, speaking about where you want to be is essential to the re-branding process.

4. Use Your Social Media Voice.  Maybe you have a lot of detailed knowledge about a field, so it’s time for a blog to better position yourself as an expert. Or a microblog on Twitter in which you curate other content in your field and post helpful links. Or you want to show off your new business venture, so you should be posting daily pics on Instagram, and reposting via Twitpic and on Facebook. Or create  Pinterest page.  The key to making your social voice heard is offering content and insights that others find helpful. Social media has leveled the playing field, giving every entrepreneur and employee the same platform as large corporate players and celebs. So use it!

5. Leverage Linked In. Despite being launched before Facebook, and despite new interface upgrades that have made it more user-friendly, Linked In seems like the forgotten step-sister of the social media world. And yet HR professionals say they turn to LI consistently when filling positions. So take some easy steps on this network: build your profile, ask for recommendations, connect to Groups (at a Minimum, your college alumni group and at least one or two industry groups–the one you’re in or the one you want to be in). You can also use the powerful Search tool to find people within your own network who work in the field you want to be in, or even in the very company you are interested in.

And, just because I have one coming up, here’s a bonus tip:

6. Attend Reunions. When people are out of work or re-positioning their careers, often the last thing they want to do is attend a reunion (where everyone asks “What do you do?”). But here is the perfect place to practice your New elevator pitch! And more importantly, reunions give you a place to listen to others about what they do or don’t like about their fields, what qualities make someone successful in that field. So raise a glass with your classmates, who can help you find your way.

The New Year is a time for great new opportunities, and for us all to re-invent ourselves a bit. Go out there and enjoy your personal re-brand. It’s time!

Amy DeLouise is a speaker, brand consultant and multimedia producer who has often had to re-invent herself.

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3 Ways to Ruin Your Next Video (and How to Fix Them)

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Amy DeLouise Dynamotion set   1. Your Client (or Boss) Wants Your Video to “Go Viral”

Of course they do. But your project doesn’t have Jennifer Aniston as its on-screen host. Nor have you the budget to license Gerry Rafferty’s famous Baker Street song for the big finish. Not to mention the fact that you can’t afford to rent a large hard-cyc studio with full production crew, direct the separate shoot and graphics session for the dancing babies, and don’t forget about the puppy and its handler! But we digress…

Solution: So if you don’t have the budget for those things, how do you give your client the views they want? The first way is to assess where their community lives online. Are they pinning on Pinterest? Tweeting on Twitter? Posting images to Instagram? Checking in on Facebook? When you understand the platform where your community lives, you can more successfully design content they want to interact with and share with friends and colleagues. I hate to mention that your end product might not even need to be a video. It might be more effective as an Infographic that tells your story. It might be a powerful image that can get pinned and reposted. It might just be a fantastic blog post that you cross-promote by making it a guest blog post on a more trafficked site where your community likes to be informed.

 2. Your Client or Boss Wants to be IN the Video

Of course they do. They are the head of a department. They are an expert. They are in charge of this project. And maybe they are just fantastic on camera. But chances are, they aren’t. Chances are, they do more speaking in front of live humans, not lenses. And so you will need to come up with Another Way.

Solution: Enter animation. Animation can allow your on-screen host to introduce ideas and elements that bounce around on the screen and keep everyone’s attention, without having to just look at a talking head. Lots of companies are now providing Whiteboard Animation services for educational/informational productions. But really any animation style can be used as long as you take the time to develop a script, and storyboard out the frames so you know what visuals are best for telling your story.

3. You Plan to Shoot This Video on Your iPhone

Sure, you can do this. I even have iPhone footage of myself on this website. But I produced it using professional lights, a teleprompter, a backdrop, and someone to help me so I wasn’t juggling everything myself.

Solution 1: Remember that if you decide to shoot with a phone, the lens is the size of your fingernail. It will not be able to capture images and lighting with dramatic contrasts or motion, so keep things reasonably steady and use supplemental lighting.  You’ll need to hold on each planned shot for longer than you think, as the phone will shave the last few frames off each image as it saves them. But even more important than the images, a phone will only record the audio you provide it. That means, having someone shout and hope your on-board mic will pick it up won’t work. You’ll need to have a DAR (digital Audio Recorder) and a mic. It’s worth the investment if you plan on doing this often.  You’ll also need iMovie or some other editing program to help you get rid of unwanted scenes and frames. There are plenty of consumer products to choose from. One other note: phone footage will not do well if you are planning to blow up your video on a large conference screen (move to Solution 2).

Solution 2: If you decide being a videographer, sound recordist, director, producer, and editor is too much for you, then planning your workflow with a professional production team can improve your results. If you’re concerned about the budget, plan to lessen the work for the outside team by doing these time-intensive tasks yourself: location scouting, interview scheduling, and supplemental photo or footage research within your company archive or stock archives.

Amy DeLouise is a writer, producer, director and speaker who loves making great video content come alive.

 

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Sure Way to Increase Donors and Activists: Tell Stories

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Sky at Sunset In philanthropy, the saying is that people give to people, not causes. Connecting at the level of hearts and minds has always been critical to building long-term relationships with donors, and also with grassroots supporters. And the best way to do that is through storytelling.  Now that YouTube, Vimeo, and other Web 2.0 tools are giving so many nonprofits a “channel” for their stories, personal narrative is being rediscovered.  But to tell a compelling story requires critical elements.

What makes a compelling story about mission?

1.       Focus on outcomes. Everyone loves a success story. Reality TV is filled with them: obese person becomes thinner, aspiring chef wins the prize, talented singer gets a record deal.  Think of the success stories in your organization, but instead of listing them as bullet-points, express them through anecdotal stories.

2.       Focus on people. The people who make it happen and the people whose lives are changed. Who are the people who made a difference in students lives? What are those students doing today? Who is the volunteer who went into a community and changed it for the better? What is happening in that neighborhood now? What would have happened to that child without a medical intervention paid for by others? What kind of life does this child have today?  Interview-driven narratives are highly successful at building the case for donors and volunteers.

3.       Show why your organization matters. Somewhere in the narrative, you need to show viewers why your organization made a tangible difference in the outcome.  It wasn’t just random acts of kindness that led to this success. It was your people, your dedication, your/their dollars at work.

4.       Engage viewers in their own narrative. Make sure there is a call to action somewhere in your story, usually at the very end. “How can you make a difference just like Alice did?”  “With just 20 cents per day, you can change the life of a child like Shawn.” “Join us at our XYZ event to make your voice heard.”  Think about what story viewers want to create for themselves after watching yours.

5.       Provide follow-up options. If a viewer is moved by your narrative, they should easily be able to click somewhere next to the video or case study to do something–sign up for the conference, make a donation, become a member.  Despite the tendency to want sheer numbers—hey, our video got 20,000 views!—you really want qualified viewers. And viewers who will ACT once they’ve heard your story. So be sure you provide a way they can engage other than passive viewing. The framework around the video should have clickable links. And if you are participating in Youtube’s nonprofit program, you can embed links to your nonprofit site directly in your video content.

Telling and hearing stories is our oldest human instinct. Web 2.0 just makes it easier to share.

Amy DeLouise helps nonprofits tell their stories, strategize about their futures, and influence the world around them.

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How Colleges Market Themselves…or Don’t

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2014-ElonAfter 5 college tours in 3 days, I can tell you a lot about the best and worst of college marketing. We took our oldest on his first round of tours, and as a video and multimedia producer, I was particularly intrigued by the use (or lack) of audio-visual storytelling. One school got high marks for its all-visuals slide show supporting a dynamic speaker. He knew his material well, had gone to the school himself, and delivered lots of insightful anecdotes. He gave us some stats, too, but understood that those are easily found on websites and print materials, so he  focused on painting a vivid picture of the undergraduate student experience.

At another elite school—which shall remain nameless—the presentation couldn’t have been more different. The speaker said “uh” every other word. He held on a single slide for more than 3 minutes at a time–deadly! And each slide contained text in a poor layout so that while it was very large, it was still hard to read. Of the two videos he showed, one was a fun “trying to be viral” piece focused entirely on one athlete in one very popular (nationally recognized team) sport. It was cute. But the fact that it was 50% of the content shown conveyed the message that this particular team is central to the college culture, and maybe that was the intent. The other video we saw was supposed to be more all-encompassing about the university, but clearly had no script other than “get a bunch of students to talk to the camera and edit it all together as quickly as you can.” This video was filled with poor quality shots–blown out lighting, sound you couldn’t hear– along with a terrible “corporate” repetitive music bed that made it hard to follow. The editing was poor quality, too, and a last freeze frame was on the wrong field, resulting in a weird blur on a student’s face. What this show conveyed was “we’re such a great place that we don’t really have to invest in this video because you’ll probably want to come here anyway.” Mission accomplished.

The school that impressed my son the most likely did so in part because of its emotional, effective and high quality admissions video:

The #Elon video is effective for many reasons—I won’t bore you with a film lecture—but one of them is the original music being performed by students and the thoughtful edit sequences and camera setups. This is not just a mash-up blizzard of images of the school, but a story well told, and it had its intended effect on one prospective applicant. What it told his mom is this: we respect the story enough to approach filmmaking (and its various crafts of writing, directing, editing, music composition, etc.) with creativity and professionalism, just like any other academic discipline.

A school we didn’t see, but might on our next jog north, could be University of Rochester, which took a very different but equally compelling approach to an original music composition, with this well-made admissions rap video:

My take away from this experience is this: if you are marketing yourself, whether to prospective students, customers or donors, how you tell your story matters. A well-planned and executed project—whether a speech with slides, a rap video or a documentary-style piece—will convey your passion. A poor one undermines your message.

 

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