The Place: Mombassa, Kenya – Africa
Mission: Reading Writing & Arithmetic
You really have to stretch yourself to experience what a thrill it must be to be in school and be learning the very rudimentary lessons from which all other lessons, both academic and life lessons are drawn.
This video production is in celebration of this education. It is a’Thank You’ card to those who made the mission possible with their generous donations and support. Its also a fundraiser and will be used to draw attention to the cause.
Speaking of fundraising, I think it should be a ‘given’ that if you first ‘give’ its easier to ‘get’. In my girlhood, I remember the blind man who sat in the post office working on the brooms he made – does anyone recall those? The broomstick was white and at the very tip it had a pattern of red which always, back in the day, informed the observer that the person with this walking stick was blind. It was very important to have this ‘identifier’ as it was before we have street lights that would make a sound to let the blind person know it was safe to cross the street. Anyway, I digress – point is he would sit there and weave these beautiful brooms and offer them for sale. If you could not afford one of these, he had a hat into which you’d put some money and you could take a pencil as a gratitude gesture. The pencil was in the branding colours of a blind persons walking stick. That simple offering of a pencil for a bit of loose change or a dollar was very effective.
This video production is the equivalent. If you were one of those who donated to this cause, seeing those happy children eager to go to school will bring tears to your eyes. It fulfills you! So far as I know, saying thank you to your donors, by gifting them with the shared experience of what their efforts produced is the surest way back into their hearts and their cheque book!
To the other side, the oft repeated devastating video that rips your heart out and makes you want to exit the video is one that those of us who fundraise, call: ’sympathy fatigue’. It works because its so manipulative, you want to do something to get away from the pain you now have after watching it. Statistics have proved that the best way to loose someone who donates to worthy causes is to make them ‘hurt’ for the experience. While this skilled manipulation is effective and immediate, it is not one that builds consistency. Videos produced to encourage donations, also emotionally involve positive reinforcement. Everyone wants to do good and feel good.
Why not employ that method when ask for money for your cause. Make the those that support your cause or mission, with good feelings…reward that and you merely replicate what Pavlov did by his seminal work known as: Conditioned Response’. His salivating dogs proved that we program ourselves and are programmable!
Video, especially if it’s intention is to go the distance by building on a brand, then we really need to generate good positive responses in the viewer in order to have them salivate when we ask them for more money! LOL Sorry, couldn’t resist it!
Video is, without a doubt, the most cost effective marketing tool in the world. We tend to remember far more of what we see than what we hear. Have a second look at this video production on this page;
– see the very happy children;
– observe how very disciplined they are;
– notice how the teaching is integrated into their culture and not slapped on top of it’
That, even if I so say so, is a solid video sales tool. What say you? I was one of those who once upon a day would have said that such a happy video production would not have been effective in fundraising as it would have indicated that they had all the money they needed; actually it has the opposite effect. Would be donors wanted to get in on the ‘good feeling’ of being helpful.
Fundraising Video Production like this ensure the following:
– they grow your donor base’
– fundraising videos like these, generate money, they don’t just collect it!
– video production that entertains while it informs sinks into memory & is easily recalled
– when video production gives it gets! Its so simple.
– video that makes someone feel good is the video most likely to be shared;
– video is the most cost effective marketing tool in the world.
By the way, its easier today than ever before to produce your own videos. One of the most professional video productions, is to ensure that you have a well crafted, intro & outro… that’s shop talk for, a brief clip that introduces your video and a brief clip the ends it. Think ‘book ends’. When you have those, and they are designed to be your branding signature, you can use them to intro & outro any video and somehow no matter how unprofessionally shot the ‘in between’ footage is, its all forgivable.
Video production, especially when it’s to raise funds does not need to look professional, it needs to look honest and serve the subject that being filmed and not the organization thats raising the funds. That last sentence is perhaps the most important statement I’ve made in this blog entry. Let the images do the talking and it will also do the heavy lifting ( as a marketing and advertising term). Don’t pat yourselves on the back at the expense of those who need to have a voice. Don’t have your videos appear to be begging, have them offering an opportunity to empower someone else and let it be the only reward.
Above all we could all do more to remember this: the main ingredient is always love. Make it the main ingredient and whatever you cook up in your video productions will always serve up joy, good digestion, and it will always build healthy hearts and strong bones!