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Charity Video

Why not give your video expertise away for good by helping out a charity? You'll have a built-in audience, a story to tell and a real reason to shoot. Plus, you will take away some great stuff for your demo reel. There are three general ways to go about making videos for charity. You can produce promotional videos, do training videos or teach video making as a purely educational exercise. Reading this article will help you decide what type of project to do and for which charity.

When video is used as a promotional tool, quality of the final product is key. The charity is going to show this video to others, so if it looks cheap, your production will hinder rather than advance the cause. Nonprofits can benefit from video in many ways, including volunteer recruitment. Frequently, representatives will go to community groups to talk about the charity. It's great when they have a video in hand that shows happy volunteers and clients.

I once shot and edited a promotional piece for a group of retired seniors who volunteered for the local sheriff. The group came to me with a general script about what the volunteers do on a daily basis. In one afternoon, I shot them patrolling neighborhoods, doing office work and directing traffic. While getting the b-roll (general video shots that help support the story), I also interviewed them about how much they loved their work. At that point, all I needed to do was take short sound bites of the interviews, place them in a slightly revised script and slap in the b-roll. The organization used the video when speaking to other seniors and also showed it during community events and fairs, playing the video on a television in their booth.

In order to function, all charities need funding. Video is often used as a promotional tool to raise money. Sometimes it's the same promotional video that's used for volunteer drives. But even more effective is a video specifically targeted to raising money. Your cause could be armed with a video showing that donations are being put to good use.

Charities also want to raise awareness about a societal, health or environmental problem. That's what charities do: find a problem and try to fix it. A video that addresses this issue would focus more on the charity's clients. Not only can you present this type of video at community events, but you can also offer it to local television stations and cable providers, who are always looking for public service announcements. It's even possible to go high-tech and stream it on the Web for the whole world t…